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ARTICLE · 03 FEBRUARY 2000

This Sporting Life

Webber Wentzel
Webber Wentzel
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Webber Wentzel

Webber Wentzel

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South AfricaCorporate/Commercial Law

February 2000

'Football is not a matter of life or death. It is far more important than that.'

The immortal words of the late Liverpool manager Bill Shankley, apply not only to soccer but to most sporting codes. The fanatical support that sport( engenders is being harnessed by business and sport is becoming a multi-billion- dollar enterprise. "These days football is big business and news of the comings and goings of football managers - as well as player trades and match results - has become required reading for the movers and shakers in the City (of London).... Football is the newest emerging market.... It is huge now and it is going to be even bigger." (Time magazine, 17 March, 1997). The distinctions between sport as a social pastime and the full-time business of sport is becoming more and more blurred.

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