Universal Player Rights Declaration Unveiled - To Protect Players in All Sports

The World Players Association (WPA), the largest cross-sport athlete representative body in the world, has published a new universal declaration of player rights.

The declaration contains 17 articles that are designed to protect athletes across all sports.
The World Players Association is affiliated with sport’s largest athlete unions, including organisations representing players in football (soccer), American football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey.

The articles include a right to collectively bargain, express opinions freely and receive equal pay for equal work, according to the World Players Association, which represents 85,000 athletes across 100 organisations worldwide.

Interestingly, one article also refers specifically to an athlete’s right to a private life, privacy and protection in relation to the collection, storage and transfer of personal data. With leagues worldwide looking into opportunities to exploit data in ever-more granular depth, the article could have some interesting implications for future collective bargaining talks.

“The rule books of world sport impose thousands of pages of onerous obligations, but none clearly spell out the internationally recognised human rights of athletes,” said Brendan Schwab, executive director of the World Players Association.

“The result is an unjust system of sports law that lacks legitimacy and fails to protect the very people who sit at the heart of sport. We are making it clear that athlete rights can no longer be ignored. They must be able to quickly access justice.”