Research the areas in which the provisions of social law adapt totally or partially to sports activity, this is the overall objective of the scientific symposium organized this April 28, 2023 in Yaoundé by the law firm Nouyadjam&Associates.
Built under the theme « sport and social law in Cameroon », this symposium aims to present the non-adaptations of social law to sports activities while establishing an inventory of this legal and regulatory system on professional relations in sports to finally lead to an agora of proposals, perspectives aimed at improving the applicability of sports social law. As part of these activities, several themes were addressed during 03 sessions.
The first session was structured around the existence of a sportsman’s work contract. Moderated by Professor Alex Tjouen, Associate Professor of Law Faculties and Lecturer at the University of Yaoundé 2, this workshop has further located the participants and practitioners of sport on a non-exhaustive list of sub-themes. From the understanding of a sportsman’s training contract to the execution of the latter by the sportsman, passing through the termination of a sportsman’s employment contract without forgetting the sportsman’s freedom of association; so many aspects that have been explored for a better acquisition of the already existing content of the social law of sport.
Under the chairmanship of Professor Christophe Seuna, the issue related to the litigation of the sportsman’s employment contract was marked out during the second session. Concretely, it was a question of making a complete display of International Litigation in sports matters; moreover, a case study on football will have made it possible to understand the key role that conciliation plays as a method of dispute resolution in sports far beyond arbitration and the principle of gratuitousness before sports courts.
While social security is increasingly recommended, and that of athletes in particular being an integral part; Professor Thierry Gaëtan Foumena around the other panelists of the third session have, to lay the framework governing sport and social security. Questioning the social security of the sportsman in Cameroon, these actors clarified in a very accentuated way the content of the legal treatment of the work accident of the sportsman in Cameroonian law without omitting to highlight what Cameroonian law says with regard to the social protection of a high-level sportsman.
As a reminder, sport has been ignored for a long time by social law and the evolution of the working relationship between the sportsman and his club has undoubtedly imposed a serious reflection; an action already initiated in Cameroon in 2018 through the field of Litigation. While the work took place in a good-natured atmosphere, the various participants tuned their violins on a non-exhaustive list of proposals and perspectives, the certain elaboration of a national collective agreement for salaried professional athletes or that of a regulation of sports federations applicable to salaried athletes being to put to the test solutions to advocate.
Martial OBIONA
