Match-fixing is one of the most serious threats to professional football. As noted in one of the decisions of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), CAS 2014/A/3628, "… the protection of the integrity of the competitions is absolutely essential for UEFA, as match fixing is considered to be the biggest threat to sport because it touches at the very essence of the principles of loyalty, integrity and sportsmanship". In this article CAS decisions for the period 2009-2014 on cases related to the liability of clubs for match-fixing by officials or players are systematically introduced into scientific circulation. For this purpose, the authors consider the arguments of the parties and CAS in disputes and make the following conclusions. First, the arbitration is not inclined to impose a conditional sanction or reduce the size of the sanction on the basis of proportionality. Secondly, CAS considers an administrative measure to be different in nature from sanctions and therefore not subject to the principle of proportionality. Thirdly, the application of the principle of strict liability allows to hold the clubs that participated in match-fixing activities liable without proving the existence of the club's consent to illegal actions. Fourthly, in order to protect the integrity of sport CAS accepts the use of a wide range of evidence to confirm the fact of match-fixing, including the evidence, the application of which is deemed unacceptable in national legal systems.

he right of football clubs to establish local bans (the so-called “blacklists”) depends on a number of reasons. A local ban on visiting football matches can act as a measure to combat the unlawful behaviour of viewers, thus complementing the administrative responsibility of the spectators. In Russian law it is not possible to impose a ban on the sale of tickets to football matches by football clubs. The current wording of the rules of spectators’ behaviour during official sporting events does not, by default, allow supporter identity checks when entering the stadium. That also complicates the identification of spectators for being on the “blacklist”. The practice of civil suits brought by football clubs against supporters, as one of the few legal tools to influence supporters, is currently not widespread. As a result, there are no uniform approaches to resolve these disputes: the courts motivate refusals by various arguments, the validity of which can be reasonably criticised.

The practice of concluding employment contracts by professional football players and coaches, assistant coaches with clubs from China demonstrates some usual business practices encountered in football related to the conscientious and negligent performance of these contracts by the parties. To identify them, let us turn to the available appeal practice of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (hereinafter-CAS, arbitration) regarding the decisions of the FIFA Committee on the status of players (hereinafter-the Committee). In this article, we turn to all disputes involving clubs from the PRC, considered by arbitration, and united by the question of applying "just cause" for termination of an employment contract by one of the parties. Keywords: employment contracts with football players, employment contracts with coaches and assistant of coaches, termination of an employment contract with a football player, "just cause", practice of FIFA Committee on the status of players, Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), practice of CAS, football clubs from the PRC.