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Fair Play
Fighting to Protect the Spirit of Sport - The Memoirs of a Sports Lawyer
Fair Play
Fighting to Protect the Spirit of Sport - The Memoirs of a Sports Lawyer
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Description
IN THE MEDIA (please note that some of these articles may be behind paywalls):
- The Times: 'Testing riders at 2am is wrong. It puts them in danger in a high-speed sport' (David Walsh, 20 July 2026), https://www.thetimes.com/sport/cycling/article/jonas-vinegagaard-doping-test-tour-de-france-david-walsh-hqfsbqwmn
- LawFuel: 'The KC Who Built the Case Against Men in Women's Sport' (Sonia Hickey, 30 June 2026)
https://www.lawfuel.com/the-kc-who-built-the-case-against-men-in-womens-sport/
The Times: 'Man who paved way …' (Martyn Ziegler, 26 June 2026)
https://www.thetimes.com/sport/athletics/article/laywer-book-biological-male-womens-sport-bszsvgvd8
A sports governing body owes a duty to its athletes and fans alike to ensure that the playing field is level and the outcome is determined solely by the athletes' natural talents, skill and effort, and not by confounding factors such as performance-enhancing drugs or equipment, or insuperable natural advantages in age, sex, or weight.
Jonathan Taylor KC, with his unparalleled experience in the field over the past 28 years, in particular as lead advocate on some of the most prominent and important sports law cases ever fought, provides a detailed insider account of those cases as a means of illustrating the practical, ethical and legal issues confronted by regulators who are seeking to protect what makes sport such a unique and compelling spectacle.
Jonathan has a range of stories to tell that give us a fascinating insight into what is really involved in fighting for the integrity of sport. These include prosecuting the spot-fixing case against the Pakistani cricketers in 2010, helping the sports movement respond to the state-sponsored doping scheme in Russia from 2011 to 2014, policing the boundaries of male and female competition categories in the Caster Semenya case in 2019, and litigating whether double amputee Blake Leeper had an unfair performance advantage over able-bodied athletes.
This title is included in Bloomsbury Professional's Sports Law online service.
Table of Contents
2 A Mortal Danger to Sport
3 A Little Extra Chemical Kick
4 Russia's Doping Operation
5 A Different Kind of Girl
6 The Fastest Man on No Legs
7 Extra Time
Product details
| Published | Sep 10 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Paperback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 258 |
| ISBN | 9781526535238 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Professional |
| Dimensions | 10 x 6 inches |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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This memoir by a still rare example of a solicitor silk, still rarer because of his sports law specialism, is a riveting read showing how his skills as an advocate have been fluently transitioned into equal skills as an author ... in my opinion, no serious sports lawyer can be without this book, and anyone interested in any aspect of sport and law would enjoy it.
Michael Beloff KC, International Sports Law Review
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As The Times' Martyn Ziegler reported … Taylor has now done the one thing dark lawyers aren't supposed to: written it all down. Fair Play: Fighting to Protect the Spirit of Sport is part memoir, part case file, part justification. And what a file. The book's gut-punch is the human cost … It is the rare integrity lawyer willing to admit in print that the spirit-of-sport crusade comes with a personal invoice and that the loathing governing bodies prefer to outsource lands on the litigator, not the institution.
LawFuel

























