Simon Gardiner

Dr. Simon Gardiner is a Professor of International Sports Law and has worked at a number of universities in the UK and in Australia including Middlesex University and Griffith University in Queensland. He has been at Leeds Becket University since 2006.

Simon has been an active researcher in the area of sports law for over twenty years and has an international reputation. His particular research interests include sports governance and the regulation of sports-related corruption, racism in sport and the construction of national identity and athlete mobility in sport. He has been involved in funded research projects and consultancy for a range of sports bodies and has worked with the European Union concerning a number of projects.  This includes a study on legal issues concerning anti-doping provisions and the related decisions of the Court of Arbitration for Sport; the regulation of football hooliganism; legal expert with the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency and its study on Racism in Sport; and a study on the Equal Treatment of Non-Nationals in Individual Sports Competitions. He has also worked with the Council of Europe in the area of conflict resolution and human rights in sport together with the ‘Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport’ organization. 

Simon has published widely in refereed journals, numerous professional journals and in book collections of edited chapters across a range of sports-related disciplines including law, sociology and management. He is lead author and editor of the UK’s principal student-targeted textbook, namely Gardiner et al, Sports Law due to be published in its fifth edition in December 2020.  This book is used by both undergraduate and postgraduate students and practitioners and provides an explicitly socio-economic context to the development and application of law to sport. He has also co-edited two books (2000 and 2009) with seminal collections of articles on the development of the European Union’s sports regulation policy. His published work has had significant impact on and is heavily cited in other Sports Law literature and more widely in related sports studies disciplines.  The work has also been cited, by the UK Law Commission, the European Commission and in a number of legal cases