It may sound heretical to those who believe that the greatest show on Earth is about nothing other than sport, pure and simple, but without lawyers the Beijing Olympic Games would not exist. So, too, the array of other well-publicised sporting events that we devour — whether through television, newspapers or the internet — as if manna from heaven.

The reality is that lawyers are as much a part of the sporting landscape as athletes. Just as those going for gold in China began their preparation years ago, so too did the legal teams. “The Olympic Games have been around for 112 years,” Robert Datnow, of Keystone Law, says, “and so the International Olympic Committee \ has built up a tremendous knowledge bank. This is very helpful for each Games, but nevertheless the lawyers involved are always looking ahead.” Datnow cites the example of a British Olympic Association (BOA) initiative called Club GB set up to make sporting, commercial and legal links in Beijing for the benefit of the 2012 Games in London.

Datnow, formerly head of legal at the BOA, has been acting for Sportsworld Group, the UK’s officially appointed ticket and tour agent for the Beijing Games. Many lawyers worldwide will also be involved in the contractual minutiae of ticketing and hospitality for the event, at which 202 nations will be present, but such work is ultimately subject to one master agreement, the sine qua non of the Games: “The Olympic Charter, created and modified by the IOC, is at the core of each Games,” Datnow says. “This governs Beijing’s host city agreement and most of the other agreements that individual national Olympic committees enter.”

For Datnow, lawyers are integral to sports events. “The law confers no protection for an idea, which is what the Olympic Games is. It and other leading events exist on their present scale only because of continued funding, but you can create significant and lasting revenue streams only through the sale and control of rights. The contractual framework governing rights — from television and sponsorship to ticketing and merchandise — is essential to the existence of each sporting event. Without lawyers creating and policing this framework, there is no commercial proposition and no global audience.”

Max Duthie, a specialist in sports law with Bird & Bird, elaborates on the substantial lawyers’ workload courtesy of Beijing 2008. “As with all leading sporting events, the Beijing Olympics will throw up a number of legal issues that will need to be dealt with in the run-up to and during the competition.

“These might involve ambush marketing, unauthorised broadcasts \, ticket touting, eligibility disputes, disciplinary and anti-doping cases. Some of these will be dealt with under local law, but many others will not.” Moreover, Duthie says: “The expertise and knowledge base of the leading UK sports law firms make it likely that they will be the first port of call when trouble starts.”

The textbook example of ambush marketing occurred courtesy of Linford Christie, who turned up at a press conference during the Atlanta Games sporting blue contact lenses with a white Puma logo, to the immense chagrin of the official sponsor, Reebok. Hubert Best, of Best & Soames, advised on intellectual property matters for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Athens Games — which alone, he recalls, involved more than 1,000 contracts — and confirms that the IOC takes ambush marketing “very seriously indeed. It’s not just a question of making athletes contractually agree, via agreements with their national Olympic bodies, not to do anything that conflicts with the event’s official sponsors, but also of trying to ensure that the Games are ‘clean’ across the board.”

Best is alluding to the plethora of contracts that will stipulate that only branding of the Beijing Games’ official sponsors and partners can be shown — something that is not always easy to enforce. For example, as Best says, “some events, such as the marathon, are not held wholly in one arena but enter into public places. Trying to prevent hijacking of the event, either through sale of unauthorised merchandise or displays of unofficial products and companies, is one of the most challenging issues for the organisers and their legal teams.”

The word “clean” is more commonly associated with what is unfortunately a perennial issue in modern sport — doping. Dwain Chambers’ recent failed appeal against his lifetime Olympics ban reminds us that Beijing 2008 will be attended by a phalanx of lawyers whose role is to arbitrate on the seemingly inevitable “drug cheat” allegations. Step forward, the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which, until August 24, is operating from an ad hoc office in Beijing.

David W. Rivkin, a litigation partner in Debevoise & Plimpton’s New York and London offices, is one of the 12 lawyers on the CAS panel who, as he says, will “be ready to handle arbitrations as they arise at the Games, allowing disputes to be resolved immediately and to proceed in real time”.

Not everything the CAS has to consider involves the misuse of drugs — one of Rivkin’s colleagues, Michael Beloff, QC, recalls dealing with an athlete who seized a national flag from an administrator in Atlanta, and considering whether a wrestler, accused of sex with a minor, could compete.

Any such problems of protocol, not to mention allegations of illicit drug use, will take up the CAS panel’s time but perhaps the most valuable legal work in connection with the Games goes not to sports lawyers but those in construction and litigation. Both Beijing 2008 and London 2012 have entailed the building of new stadiums and sports infrastructure over vast swaths of land, making for a contractual nexus that dwarfs even that of the television rights sector.

So far as London 2012 is concerned, there may also be work for UK litigation lawyers, according to Daniel Levy, head of property at Mishcon de Reya: “As illustrated by the recent Wembley Stadium delays and subsequent court battles, there is a significant potential for litigation if development is delayed, and with so many parties involved — from insurers, to construction firms, to quantity surveyors — things can get extremely fraught and complex.”

But at least one lawyer is gearing up for London 2012 not by way of studying legal precedent but by pushing her physical limits. Rachel Joyce, a former construction lawyer at Taylor Wessing, is a member of the Great Britain long distance triathlon performance squad and a 2012 hopeful.

Taylor Wessing has supported Joyce in her sporting ambitions, agreeing to sponsor her financially for the next three years. The firm has also reached an agreement whereby she can return to work on a project basis when she is not training. No doubt she will keeping a keen eye on Beijing, and, just maybe, hoping that when the London Games roll into town, she will be taking satisfaction from her performances on the track rather than the role she played in the behind-the-scenes legal work.

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