Self-Regulation or Regulation? What Can European Sports Learn from Jerry Sandusky?’

Lunch & Learn

Asser International Sports Law Centre 

Speaker: Dr David McArdle (Stirling Law School, T.M.C. Asser Instituut)

This paper considers the implications of a child sex abuse scandal that arose at Pennsylvania State University in 2011/2012. While the university's failure to deal with the matter showed that its over-riding concern lay in protecting the reputation of its prestigious college football programme rather than with its child protection obligations, Penn State is also notable for the extent to which the governing body of college sports, the NCAA, felt obliged to sanction the university once its complicity in the affair became apparent. The paper shows that the NCAA's use of its rules on this occasion stands in marked contrast to its historical policy of distancing itself from unlawful behaviour that is indirectly connected to colleges' sporting activities, and I will argue that its response will make it more difficult for the NCAA to distance itself from other discrediting incidents in the future.