High Work Organization in Professional Sports Clubs
International Forum on Professional Sports Clubs

International Law Offices together with the basketball club “Khimik” held a forum on 18 June 2010 in Yuzhny that was rightfully considered as the first event in Ukraine covering burning issues of the majority sports clubs.

The participants of the forum were representatives of the basketball, volleyball, football and rugby clubs of Ukraine, Belorussia and Lithuania. It was unanimously decided that all kinds of sports are different, but the work organization principles such as club’s structure, management, marketing, psychological management were absolutely the same. That is why there were many issues to be discussed.

The forum was opened by the President of the basketball club “Khimik” Mr. Nazarenko. In his speech he touched upon the issue of the interest’s club protection to be taken into account when concluding contracts with the players of all ages. “The contract is to protect as the interests of the club as well as of the player, but not to demand from the club to fulfill unilaterally its obligations”. The issue became the most burning for the clubs training the sports players from junior teams up to the professionals.

An interesting speech was made by Sergey Popov, Manager of the consulting company “SportAgent Ltd”. Mr. Popov dwelled upon the problems of the development of the sports management in Ukraine. “It is necessary to earn more in order to spend more and as a result to get results” such non-standard approach is applied to by famous sports clubs in their practice.

Nikolay Melnykov, partner of “International Law Offices”, dwelled upon the legal regulation over the sports activity performed in Ukraine and abroad by his presentation “Professional Sports Player of the Competitive Sport”. Mr. Melnykov gave the definitions for the sportsman profession, defined the criteria to obtain the status of a professional player (contract with the club, participation in the competitions etc.). Besides, Nikolay Melnykov underlined the importance of the right contract wording, club’s regulations, transfers and lease of a player. In the long run, Nikolay Melnykov recommended the clubs to develop their own contracts. “If the contract is drawn up well there won’t be any problems in future”.

The speech made by the General Manager of the basketball club “Budyvelnyk”, Gedeminas Navikauskas (Lithuania) was highly informative. Mr. Navikauskas by his speech “Sports Selection “Farm” or “Players’ Selling as One of the Main Club’s Sources of Financing” told about the structure of the modern basketball club. Mr. Navikauskas is highly experienced in basketball club management of international level. The delegates got much to know on experience of Euroleague holding special seminars related to television rights selling and increase of attendance at competitions. The main criteria for efficient club are to be service, modern and well-equipped sports complex and privileges for the sponsors. Mr. Navikauskas also dwelled upon the methods of young sportsman preparation and demonstrated the preparation scheme from sports school up to the team.

The Deputy Director of BC “Khimik” Alexey Dibert touched upon the work with junior teams. He shared the problems arisen before solvent and successful basketball club. In general, those problems are practically the same: absence of income from transfers, problems related to players’ lease, TV broadcasting payment, incommensurability of the costs for the player’s training with the payment for his transfer, search for the possibilities to reduce the costs of the sponsor etc. There is a children’s sports campus nn the base of the BC “Khimik” where young basketball players come from all regions of Ukraine to be selected for the further trainings in the BC “Khimik”.

Psychologist Andrey Zhuravsky paid attention to some psychological aspects as for the sports club organization.

The report of Arthur Nitsevych, partner of International Law Offices, was of high interest as it was dedicated to the most important and interesting cases of the sports arbitration. Mr. Nitsevych covered the types of the sports arbitration in the world and absence of the specialized arbitration courts in Ukraine. The main difference of the sports arbitrator is his well aware of the sports peculiarities. Lausanne (Switzerland) is the place of the Court of Arbitration for Sport dealing with hearing of the cases related to the sports issues. Arthur Nitsevych illustrated some interesting cases on dispute hearing in international arbitration with Ukrainian players, trainers and clubs, in particular, with CAS and FIBA Arbitration Tribunal. The final recommendation of Mr. Nitsevych was as follows: the work is to be done proactively to avoid referring the disputes between the players and clubs to the arbitration.

A lot of ideas were announced at the press conference organized by the press office of the BC “Khimik”, namely by Svetlana Maltseva and Denis Novikov. The issues covered at the press conference covered advertising and PR activity of the club, TV broadcasting organization and the use of current technologies to develop the club’s site.

All participants of the forum highly estimated the level of the forum organization and expressed their wish on necessity of such evens to share the experience. It enables to organize the clubs’ operation on a higher professional level and, in the long run, positively influence on the sports development and the performance being the final product received by the fans.

The forum was organized in such a way that the delegates had a chance to hear the speakers, discuss the issues and share their experience. In the afternoon the participates saw the sports complex “Olymp”, visited the training of the children’s sports campus and talked to the trainers of the club.

Hellas Hotel is equipped in a way to provide holding of such events: conference hall, cozy restaurant, impressing atrium and the atmosphere of hospitality and amicability.

All this became the part of the forum, the impressions of which were taken away by the delegates to share them with those who are interested in sports club development both in Ukraine and abroad. See you in 2011!