Many sports in today’s world can be classed as dangerous therefore it is no surprise that they result in numerous accidents consequently leading to a personal injury claim.

Our personal injury solicitors deal with a range of sporting accidents including: football accidents, rugby injuries, horse racing accident, swimming accidents and many others.

You may be entitle to make a compensation claim if you have suffered a personal injury whilst playing sport.

Sporting accidents are by nature diversified due to the increasing number of competitive sports, whether undertaken on a professional or amateur basis.

Accidents can occur whilst participating in school sports, local club sport or for professional clubs. Depending upon the professionalism of the sport involved and the relatively substantial financial rewards that may be available, the law relating to sporting accidents is set to become more and more specialised.

The applicable law can be diverse to include contract, tort, crime and employment law, and may in many cases depend on the regulating body involved ie the Jockey Club, the Football Association, school or local authority. The various sporting governing bodies and associations will be responsible for setting acceptable standards of play, promoting policy within the various clubs and establishing disciplinary procedures to ensure that the correct rules of the game and acceptable standards of behaviour are maintained.

The law of tort, particularly negligence will be applicable in many cases and will vary depending on the standard of the player: “By engaging in a sport…the participants may be held to have accepted risks which are inherent in that sport…but this does not eliminate all duty of care of the one participant to the other.” Rootes v. Shelton(1968)ALR33.

One of the most important considerations to bear in mind when dealing with sports accidents is to establish whether a duty of care exists and, if so, what the standard of that duty is. The nature of the duty which participants in a sport owe to each other will depend upon the level of expertise involved. For example the standard of care owed by a player in a school football team would not be as high as the standard of care of a player in a top league football match.