The office Tomarial Lawyers, Economists and Consultants has hosted the presentation in Valencia of the Decalogue for Transparency in Sports: the first regulatory document drafted in Europe to promote regeneration and change in sports institutions through the application of the legal concept of transparency. Its main author, the jurist Javier Orduña, is a director of the Tomarial firm, professor of Civil Law at the University of Valencia and former judge of the Supreme Court. In his words, “sport is suffocated by globalized economic interests. Transparency must be in the law as a normative value and effectively force sports institutions to comply with it. This decalogue is a legal instrument to promote this and there is a regeneration in the world of sport.”
This decalogue has been coordinated and endorsed by the Bar Associations of Barcelona, Madrid and Malaga and their respective Legal Research and Innovation Institutes. “With the public presentation of this document we want to contribute from a legal and academic point of view to the necessary debate on how to regenerate Spanish sport. As Public Law Corporations we express our concern about the degradation shown by the governance of the sports institutions in our country and we want to provide possible solutions based on transparency in their management and in their systems of representativeness and internal democracy. This value is presented as essential for the dignity of sport and the legal values it entails.” The decalogue will be sent to the parliamentary groups of the Congress of Deputies and different sports federations. Javier Orduña considers that “sport must be subject to the criteria of transparency to truly be of public utility and general interest, to avoid opacity and the situations that institutions such as the Royal Spanish Football Federation are experiencing today. It is the principle most mentioned in vain and most violated.”
The president of Tomarial, Tomás Vázquez Lépinette, has defined in the presentation Javier Orduña as a revolutionary jurist for his work as a judge of the Supreme Court and has highlighted that this decalogue It is “a pre-legislative work that aims to ensure that the value of transparency is incorporated in a real and effective way into the law.” that regulates the sport. Transparency is today the way to achieve real equality and to recover the social value of sport.” The sports journalist Paco Lloret has also contextualized the importance of regenerating sport in Spain: “The shadow of suspicion continues to weigh on the management of sports institutions and there are gaps in the Sports Law. Unfortunately, Valencia CF has been a paradigm. The voice of the fans is not taken into account, in elite football the rights of the fan and the spectator are violated.”
