Earlier this week, www.fibaeurope.com put online a very interesting exclusive interview with Dr Marek Palus who is the President of the FIBA Europe Legal Commission in addition to serving also as the president of the Polish Basketball Federation.

Dr Palus who is a former referee (refereed in the Polish first league for three years and for thirteen years in total between 1981 and 1994) discussed some of the work and challenges FIBA Europe is facing from a legal perspective.

In this interview, he explained that some of the main aims of the FIBA Europe legal commission is to examine, advise and prepare proposals on all questions of a legal nature related to basketball in Europe and on all other legal matters, particularly questions regarding eligibility.

The Legal Commission also has the authorization to make decisions in so called “marginal cases” (cases not covered by regulations or are of a complicated nature). Then, when legal consultation or advice is needed, the President or other members of the commission are invited to take part in meetings with other commissions or the FIBA Europe Executive Committee.

One has to mention that one of the eight members of the FIBA Europe legal commission happens to be our fellow countryman and president of the Malta Basketball Association, Magistrate Antonio Mizzi.

When asked what the most difficult legal matter is in European basketball, Dr Palus, who was born in 1964 and is married with two children, stated that the most difficult issues come from the field of eligibility. He continued by saying that these problems are always somehow connected with the analysis of the player’s national status, international transfers and also the interpretation of contracts signed by players with clubs.

According to Dr Palus, Europe is a very interesting market for players so one often has the problem of a player’s citizenship (for example, a player born in the territory of one country, having parents from another and living in a third).

Then there is also the problem of interpreting contracts where FIBA has to deal with almost 50 different legal systems, separate for every country in the FIBA Europe family.

Later in the interview, Dr Palus openly stated that one of the main goals of the legal commission’s activity is the protection of young players. In fact since 2002, FIBA has, within its legal system, some procedures protecting young players and against the transfer of young players.

The interview, taken from www.fibaeurope.com, then gives a good account of such policies by showing that rules encourage the clubs working with the development of players by recognizing their efforts in this field and ensuring them fair compensation when they produce good new players and those players are then signed by bigger clubs (although the prime intention is always that the player stay with his/her club of origin and not move. Yet if the player has to move, then the club of origin should be compensated adequately for the efforts it has made and the money it has invested into developing the player).

This has the added value of providing an incentive to smaller clubs to work with young players. It is very difficult for those clubs to invest time and money into player development and then a bigger club signs that player without providing any compensation.

A very interesting question was one asking about the system of eligibility for non-European players in FIBA Europe club competitions and whether Dr Palus foresees any changes in this current rule.

In his answer, the president of the FIBA Europe legal commission said that theoretically the system is very simple because in the European club competitions each club can only use two non-European players in any one game, even if a team can register ore than two such players.

On the local field, national Federations are free to establish their own system, so in many countries the limitation is not so restrictive and clubs may be allowed to register an unlimited number or a lesser number of non-European players.

But there is one very difficult legal problem: what does “non-European” mean. Up to the present day, FIBA is using a very simple interpretation: if a player does not have the passport of one of the countries which are members of FIBA Europe, you are non-European.

When finally asked about the future of the commission, Dr Palus, who stopped refereeing when he became an attorney as, quoting “I had to make the next choice, because I couldn’t say to my clients ‘come tomorrow because I have the game to officiate’. So I left officiating but I was always very close to basketball”) said that the main target is to create a very simple and acceptable legal system inside FIBA Europe. A lot of FIBA regulations are from the past and not always suited for the new reality.

In Dr Palus’s own words, “a good lawyer should think first of all about the interest of the client, treating the law as an instrument.

We also have such a “collective client”: national federations, clubs, players and the rest of people living and working for basketball. There should be an equitable system of regulations which makes their life easier. So our goal is to have regulations helping all people to develop basketball in Europe.”

The full interview could be seen on www.fibaeurope.com.

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