Book of the week: Top of the legal literary league - but not cheap

Sport and the Business of Law By David Griffith-Jones (Butterworths, paperback, pounds 55)

`TIS WINTER when a person's thoughts turn lightly to the summer holidays; lazy days, lying on a beach, with a good book for company. But there is little likelihood that anyone is going to take Law and the Business of Sport with them. For a start its author, barrister David Griffith-Jones, is no Barbara Taylor Bradford, and the publishers, Butterworths, could not be more removed from Mills and Boon and their ilk.

But there is another, more pressing reason why this distinguished work is unlikely to be packed along with the sunblock and phrasebook and that is its price, which would not let it sit easily on open display. For something which comprises some 350-plus pages, takes up less than an inch of a bookshelf and is unlikely to make WH Smith's bestseller list, this learned tome makes a legal-sized dent in the budget. At pounds 55 it is not so much a snip, more a deep gash in any holiday budget. A significant factor is that the print run is restricted to a thousand. No surprise there since, as a textbook, it has a limited market. This one, though, should become essential on the bookshelves and in the offices of football, rugby and cricket clubs and other sporting bodies, in addition to the usual law firms, libraries and universities.

Its price is not the only surprising thing about the book, and in fact, as law books go it is very minor league, Butterworths, the specialists in this market, have one textbook which runs to pounds 250. But that has more than 1,000 pages. No, what is surprising is that this is the first publication of its type. While there have been other books looking at the impact of law on sport, nothing has been produced which deals specifically with the business side of things. Bosman is there. But you have to look up that precedent under U in the comprehensive table of cases, where it appears as Union Royale Belge des Societes de Football Association ASBL v Bosman.

But Griffith-Jones covers more than mere freedom of contract (it is interesting to read Eastham v Newcastle United Football Club Ltd [1964], a landmark case in restraint of trade). He sets out the ramifications of broadcasting contracts, sponsorship (including tobacco), marketing, merchandising (in particular passing off), sex discrimination, racial discrimination, freedom of movement and the right to work, and liability for injury.

Given the way the world is lurching in litigious fashion to any court that will listen, any club or sporting body purchasing this book would benefit. It might not save appointing a legal team, but it would at least forewarn and forearm. Trying to explain its contents in detail would be futile. But if your club, society or governing body does not budget for this unique book, it could cost more in the long term. Griffith-Jones completed it while fulfilling his everyday professional obligations, for which he is to be congratulated. No doubt, having reacquainted himself with his family he will shortly begin on the update, because this is an aspect of law that will run and run.