Legal Status of Sports Referees: Legal Nature, Features, Problems

The paper is devoted to the content and specificity of the legal status of sports judges (sports referees) as one of the categories of active participants — subjects of sports. The paper dwells on underestimation of the role and importance of sports referees in general and in particular for specific kinds of sports. A sports referee is the most important and integral element of sports in any of its forms and at any level. Understanding of the status and ontology of the professional activity of a sports referee allows us to understand the nature of sports, its autonomy. The paper describes the essence of the concept and the legal status of sports referees, explains possible functional and instrumental roles of sports referees in detail. The authors highlight and explain existing determinants of the complexity of the concept and legal status of a sports referee and the peculiarities of the ontology of this profession. The paper shows the most pressing problems in the field of staffing positions of sports referees with qualified personnel. The paper suggests a detailed taxonomy of professional rights of sports referees noting that there is a complex and non-linear picture of the distribution of the recognition and significance of certain rights depending on specific jurisdictions. The authors define a specific ordering (order-forming and order-retaining) of the sports product, which is the integral result of refereeing and fulfilling by sports referees of other official powers.