I am honoured to have been invited to write the foreword to this book. Since the publi- tion of Professional Sport in the EU: Regulation and Re-regulation (edited by Andrew Caiger and Simon Gardiner, T.M.C. Asser Press 2000), there have been a number of dev- opments in the European Union in sports law, both in the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. The most significant of these was probably the adoption by the Commission of the White Paper on Sport on 11 July 2007. The White Paper takes stock of the acquis communautaire – the rather prodigious body of European Law including judgements and preliminary rulings of the ECJ – in the sports field and sets out the position of the Commission on three significant aspects of European sport: its societal role, its economic dimension, and its governance. The White Paper also contains concrete proposals for further EU action as part of an Action Plan named after Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games.weiterlesen