Manifestations of hooliganism, vandalism, extremism, and even terrorist acts during sports events are not a new phenomenon in Europe. The safety of sporting events is one of the priorities of any modern state. Moreover, the government is entrusted both with legislative and organizational tasks. Two reasons can be identified, why it is necessary to protect sporting events against violations of public order and attacks on public safety. On the one hand, even when law enforcement agencies professionally use all the legislative instruments at their disposal, an unlawful encroachment may be committed, which may threaten the holding of a sporting event, the safety of the person and property both of athletes and of spectators. On the other hand, the failure to criminalize these actions means that law enforcement agencies are not endowed with sufficient powers to take appropriate measures in such situations. Depending on the violation of public safety or public order, criminal, administrative or disciplinary laws will apply. The difference in the need to apply a law or regulation, as well as to impose sanctions and prohibitions on offenders, can be seen only in the level of protection corresponding to the danger of violations. The safety of sporting events is historically believed to be the primary task of law enforcement agencies, however, the responsibility of sports federations and clubs in ensuring safety in time, before and after the competition should not be overlooked.

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The modern state of criminality and its statistical analysis are an integral part of any criminological research including the field of sport. Besides the main factors forming the crime rate, the data of the judicial statistics are also influenced by the so-called minor factors that are beyond the statistics. The objective of the present research is to reveal the factors influencing the formation of indicators of statistics in the field of sport. The research uses the systematic, structural and functional, comparative and historical, and formal judicial methods that allowed determining the main directions and methods of execution of criminality recording in the field of sport that is highly latent. It was determined that there were discrepancies of the normative requirements with the qualification of wrongful acts that allowed revealing the particular correlation between the changes in the criminal law and the statistical indicators. The overrating of crime detection statistics by the particular changes in parameters of crime committed shall be called additional factors influencing the reliability and objectivity of the statistics. At the same time, the statistics of crime committed in the field of sport are required for prognostic purposes, as well as for preventive purposes, as its absence contradicts the social practice. This problem is especially acute for sportsmen who due to the reasons related, for example, to the harm injured to their health and life, do not have the ability to continue their professional career. It is a systematic approach to registering crimes committed in the field of sport that allows performing the crime prevention in full that can save also the health and life of a sportsman.

Introduction. Millions of children are ill-treated every day at home, at school, on the streets, and in sports. While sport is believed to promote health and help children to develop important social skills, its importance is often overestimated. In sports culture, violence is often taken for granted. This is an integral part of the cruel treatment of children in sports. Further, the closed nature of sports can only partially explain why both foreign and domestic experts still pay so little attention to the abuse of young athletes. Theoretical Basis. Methods. This research has been based on general scientific methods (such as analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, and the system analysis method) and methods of legal science (including methods of comparative jurisprudence, methods of literal, systematic and historical interpretation of legal norms). The theoretical basis of the thesis was the scientific papers of Russian and foreign experts in the field of criminal law, criminology, sociology, psychology and sports law. Results. A study of data on child abuse in sports, including scientific papers, data and recommendations provided by international organisations, shows that a common understanding of the term has not yet been developed nor have the specifics of “child abuse in sports” been determined. Analysis of the currently available documents developed by international organisations, shows that most of the recommendations are superficial and vague. Certain types of illtreatment, such as sexual abuse by peer or exploitation of the labour of child athletes are not covered in detail. Discussion and Conclusion. Considering the results of the studies of laws and regulations conducted in several foreign countries by international organisations, the authors have concluded that regardless of whether cruel treatment of children is a sporting tradition, no cruelty towards them can be justified; violence and exploitation of children athletes need to be prevented.

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