Playing the game -- sport law is a lucrative area, which grows ever more so as commercial values start to dominate

MORE AND MORE LAWYERS ARE GETTING INVOLVED IN FOOTBALL -- AND NOT JUST WITH LEGAL MATTERS.

NEIL ROSE REPORTS F ROM THE SIDELINESThat football is a business is now self-evident, however much disenfranchised supporters may yearn for the days when all that mattered was who scored the goal, not what boots they were wearing and who was televising it at the time.Along with the injection of money into the sport have inevitably come the lawyers.

But this is no temporary flirtation with the game for solicitors.

They have a long tradition as innovators, going back to Ebenezer Cobb Morley, who had the idea to form an organisation that became the Football Association (FA) in 1863, and then became its first secretary.

He also drafted the first laws of the game.

And it was Manchester United's solicitor chairman in the 1950s who took an English club into European competition for the first time, in the face of Football League opposition.But the days when solicitors became involved in football out of personal interest are fast disappearing.

As well as being sexy, the game's expansion demands cutting-edge legal advice and it now has the money to make it an area worth any solicitor's fee-earning time.There are two solicitor chairmen of football clubs.

Howard Culley of Irwin Mitchell recently took up the reins at Sheffield Wednesday, while Trevor Watkins of Bournemouth firm Lester Aldridge has made a name for himself in leading the rescue of his local club.

His work in transforming Bournemouth from a club in administration into the first community-owned sporting club in Europe led to him being named BBC South's sports personality of the year -- surely a first for the legal profession.Mr Watkins says that having made a quantum leap from a working-class sport to a middle-class one, football is now facing a similar challenge in the shape of Internet rights to screen matches.

The potential is huge, he predicts, and the legal issues complex.

And the new technology is not just a matter for the top players.

He says he is acting for several of his own Division Two players over intellectual property concerns relating to football management computer games featuring them.This work explosion means a number of law firms are looking to get into sports work.

Most do it on the back of one major client -- there are still some who claim to have a sports law practice when in reality they have a single bicycle manufacturer client or the like.

On the grounds that most sports lawyers believe there is no such thing as sports law -- rather, it is just the standard law applied to sport -- those outside the field think it cannot be that hard to practise.

But it is not that easy -- as ever in niche areas, it is industry expertise that ultimately counts.Lester Aldridge made its name with the innovative solution to the Bournemouth problem and, especially given Mr Watkins' position, has been able to expand further into the field.

Mr Watkins says he recently mediated between a football club chairman and its fans on the divestment of some of his shares.

The firm is acting for a company looking to take 'shares' in players; in return for the club getting an instant cash injection, the company will get a slice of any transfer fee.

And together with Manchester firm Cobbetts, Lester Aldridge will shortly receive government funding for the Supporters Direct scheme, which aims to get fans in all sports more involved with the running of their clubs.City firm SJ Berwin has made a concerted effort to build its sports business group.

Lead partner Jonathan Metliss says the firm identified sport as a sector to expand into and has worked hard to achieve this.

He contends SJ Berwin is 'the onl y City firm that has actually concentrated on building up a business of sports law group'.Again, SJ Berwin entered mainly with one client, Enic, the investment vehicle owned by millionaire Joe Lewis.

'It was an entry ticket, but you have to diversify thereafter,' Mr Metliss says.

The firm now boasts a host of sporting clients, and has just added Premiership club Derby County to the list.

There are 26 people in the group, although nobody works on sport full time.Since then, it has been a case of being seen.

The other week, Mr Metliss went to sports dinners five nights running.

'I enjoy talking sport,' he says.

'I just love the industry.

And there is only going to be more and more work.'But there remains a dedicated clique of law firms at the centre of football, jealously guarding the work.

A partner at one of them says of SJ Berwin's attempts to break in: 'They are around and often to be seen.

But you don't come across them [on the other side] as often as they'd like.'Denton Wilde Sapte has a pre-eminent position through working with the Premier League, Freshfields is known for its representation of the FA, while James Chapman & Co in Manchester has a high profile as Manchester United's law firm.

Herbert Smith acts for Sky, Birmingham-based Edge Ellison for the Football League, and London firm Townleys has the marketing advantage of being the country's only totally specialist sports law firm.Another of those in the clique is Leeds firm McCormicks.

Senior partner Peter McCormick says he got in by 'kicking the door down'.

He began by taking sponsorship at his local club, Leeds United.

Through this he became friendly with the club's commercial director and in time was given some legal work on the basis that his was the only law firm giving something back to the club.

McCormicks is now the club's firm and Mr McCormick sits on the board.

He has also represented a string of Leeds players past and present.'A lot of firms would like to tell you they're doing [sports work], but in truth they can't get through the door,' he says.

'There is a hard core of firms seen to be respected and know what they're doing.' But those in that hard core still have to be extremely vigilant, he says.

He recalls how one solicitor looking to get into football work turned up in the Leeds boardroom last season as a guest of the away team.

Mr McCormick says he made sure his wife kept the solicitor busy and away from any potential clients the whole time.The spin-offs for eight-partner McCormicks from the senior partner's strategy are clear.

Through his work at Leeds, he is now a member of the four-strong Premier League legal working party, and all four are receiving more work, he says.

The Premier League is beginning to use the working party more.

Leeds United and the Premier League are now two of McCormicks' top five clients by value.The other working party members are: Maurice Watkins, senior partner of James Chapman and a Manchester United director; Michael Jepson of London firm Gordon Dadds, a Coventry City director; and Trevor Nicholls, who joined the working party when he was a director of Norwich City.

Norwich is no longer in the Premier League and Mr Nicholls is no longer a director or even in practice, but the working party wanted to retain his expertise.

Denton Wilde Sapte is the only external firm used.Mr McCormick is leading the working party's study of broadcasting, sponsorship and commercial issues, Mr Watkins handles European regulation, Mr Jepson the ongoing negotiations over the revised standard player's contract, and Mr Nicholls handles other regulatory matters.All are very busy, particularly Mr McCormick and Mr Jepson.

The Premier League is in the middle of negotiating its next broadcasting contract -- which could bring in around £2 billion by conservative estimates with the inclusion of Internet rights -- and such is the volume and complexity of work that Denton Wilde Sapte is taking the lead on the legal work, with lower level support from McCormicks.Negotiation over the revised standard player's contract has been dragging on for years and Mr McCormick says the parties are still deadlocked over 'the really sticky areas' -- marketing provisions and intellectual property (IP) rights.

'The PFA [Professional Footballers Association] and the players want to keep as much of the IP for themselves as they can.

The clubs are saying, "what are we paying you for if we can't recoup some of the money?".'The other side of the fence is representing the players.

John Hewison, senior partner of Manchester firm George Davies & Partners, acts for the PFA.

He says a recent meeting has moved the two sides quite a lot closer on the standard contract.

It could be ready by the autumn, he reckons.The wide range of the PFA's work means that it can be hard for Mr Hewison or his firm to act for other football clients, especially clubs, due to the risk of conflict, although he has acted for the likes of Alan Shearer and David Seaman in the past.

More recently, he acted for Kevin Ratcliffe in his arbitration relating to a payment he was due from Chester City, which he used to manage.PFA work accounts for around half of Mr Hewison's time and he agrees that the increasing amount of money, along with the opportunities it brings, inevitably means there is more legal work.

What happens, for example, when both a club and its new star player have their own Web sites? Who gets to say and show what?Solicitors such as Mel Stein, Mel Goldberg and Nick Trainer have made a name through acting for players; the two Mels actually act as agents, while Mr Trainer concentrates on helping agents.Mr Trainer, a sole practitioner in London, is known as Terry Venables' solicitor, a role that has kept him busy in previous years.

While a little uncomfortable at being known in reference to just one client, he says: 'I can't complain.

The reason you get known is because they send lots of good work your way.

But you'd like people to see you have more range.' Mr Trainer has also acted for the likes of Dennis Wise, Tim Sherwood and John Scales.He too is seeing more work.

'In the past, players saw themselves as more working class.

They didn't think of consulting professionals.

But now they have cash, they see professional advice as an investment.' The Bournemouth players worried about the computer games is 'a classic example of players thinking "I need to look after myself and get professional advice"', he says.Mr Trainer shies away from acting as an agent not just because many of his clients are agents but also because 'it is a very different job'.

He explains: 'Players expect different things from their agent and solicitor.

They expect their agent to run around doing non-legal things which a solicitor might not think cost-effective.'But the independent advice and hourly rates -- as opposed to percentages -- do make solicitors appealing for players.

And some, clearly, enjoy the non-legal side to the job.

Mr Stein has taken his reputation-making work for Paul Gascoigne way beyond legal matters, having written a biography of his client as well as penning Geordie Boys, the follow-up to Gascogine' s top ten hit Fog on the Tyne.

Sadly for him, and the legal profession as a whole, Geordie Boys only made it to number 31 in the charts.CRICKET MAY BE SEEN AS A POOR RELATION TO OTHER SPORTS, BUT IT'S BEGINNING TO REALISE ITS COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL.

STEPHEN WARD REPORTSAmong sports businesses, cricket is an older but poorer relation, according to Justin Paige, a solicitor who left Westminster law firm Lewis Silkin in 1987 to set up a sports management group, World in Motion.'The contracts are still smaller in cricket than in other sports because it generates smaller revenues,' he says.

'But it is beginning to get its act together.' Other lawyers connected to the cricket world agree that there is a growing business, and a growing need for good lawyers.As Jonathan Metliss, head of the sports business group at City firm SJ Berwin, explains: 'Aside from the fortunes of the test team on the pitch, cricket is trying to pull itself up by its bootstraps commercially.'Nigel Bennett, a partner in the sports law department at London firm The Simkins Partnership, adds: 'Cricket has always undersold itself.' But he goes on: 'People like the MCC [Marylebone Cricket Club] are realising they are in the entertainment industry and they have to compete for the public's limited resources.'His firm acts for the Test Match Grounds Consortium, representing the various bigger county cricket clubs which host England test matches.

They have just negotiated a five-year deal with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) which effectively hires the grounds from the clubs to put on an event.The discussions for the deal illustrate the way income now extends far beyond the traditional idea of the admission fees paid by spectators.

For this contract, Mr Bennett says, 'we had to look at the various revenue streams coming out of a test match, including corporate hospitality, sponsorship and merchandising, and decide how to divide those up'.As a further sign of the times, he says two key areas of growth in the exploitation of test cricket are the sale of rights to broadcast on-line on the Internet, and for on-site betting.The second of those has suffered a setback with recent allegations that some players have colluded with bookmakers to fix the outcome of international matches, with investigations centring on South Africa, Pakistan and India.

A by-product of these investigations has been unforeseen extra business for English lawyers.The sport's world governing body, the London-based International Cricket Council (ICC), has the power to suspend players, but has to consider carefully the domestic laws in each country as well as international law, and the ICC's own contractual relationships with each national body.

Clearly expert advice is needed.The ICC's law firm is Simmons and Simmons.

James Vertigen is an associate at the firm and a member of its sport law department who also has a post-graduate diploma in sports law.He says the high public profile of sport makes it even more vital for clients to get advice which is exactly right, because it is so much in the public eye.Similarly SJ Berwin, which acts for the ECB, had to advise on a response to allegations of match-fixing made second-hand by former England cricketer Chris Lewis against some erstwhile team-mates.The highest profile work Simmons and Simmons has undertaken for its other main cricket client, the MCC, based at Lord's, headquarters of the English game, had little to do with players, bats and balls, and white flannels.

As the 20th century drew to a close, a special meeting of the MCC last autumn voted to end a ban on women members which had stood since the 1790s.

Not that commerce was entirely absent; the single-sex rule was widely seen as a bar to National Lottery funding for the expensive redevelopment of the cricket ground.Acting on that issue was analogous to acting for a public company with a high-profile issue raised at an extraordinary general meeting.

The firm had to advise the MCC on how to ensure all the rules for convening the meeting and conducting the vote were complied with to the letter.Firms make the links which lead to their cricket contracts in various ways.

Mr Bennett says sport is a natural extension of entertainment, which is the niche specialisation of The Simkins Partnership, but he had made cricket a priority because he has been a keen school, club and university player, and has many friends who are players.Chris Caisley, head of commercial litigation and sports law at Walker Morris in Leeds, which represents the Professional Cricketers Association and the first class counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Durham, says: 'A lot of it is not sports law, but happens to be legal services provided to a sports club.' His firm gained its cricket business because it is known for its work in other sports, particularly rugby league.Jerry Walters, head of corporate at Simmons and Simmons, is an MCC member.

The firm had steered the club through two previous unsuccessful attempts by women to be allowed in, in 1992 and 1998.Mr Metliss is a cricket fanatic as well as a corporate lawyer, and met ECB chairman Lord Maclaurin at a test match in South Africa, as well as knowing him as chairman of Tesco.In March, SJ Berwin was appointed to advise the board on a series of reforms to the game.

His firm had the right credentials -- it had negotiated rugby league players' contracts, and now its senior employment partner, Nicole Kerr, has introduced a system of central contracts for a squad of the top England cricketers who will be paid a salary by England.

In return, their country rather than their county side will decide which matches they play, to make sure they are fit and available for England when needed.In the world of sport, and cricket is no exception, one piece of work leads to another, Mr Metliss says.

'I think we've cracked cricket.

We're hanging in.

It's a good platform for us doing ECB work, it gives us a good banner.'As well as the high-profile work, cricket brings in more run-of-the-mill work that could be for any client in any nature of business.

The MCC account, Simmons and Simmons says, also included general planning and property advice, intellectual property issues, advising on disputes, general employment issues, and commercial, marketing and sponsorship agreements.

Until the allegations of match-fixing, its brief for the ICC was similar, as is work for county cricket clubs.But not all cricket law advice is in the realms of ancient stadia and professional concerns.

Earlier this year, the game at the grass roots level was riven by an ECB ruling that all players should wear helmets to protect them from head injuries from fast bowling.

Legal liability was thus passed to the schools.

Walker Morris has advised a couple of schools, and says some are seriously concerned because of the danger of being prosecuted for any injury.Mr Morris says: 'A lot of schools can't afford to buy the equipment to protect the schoolchildren.

I heard of one school which had just one helmet, and according to the size of the kid's head, they had to wrap bandages around it.' Unfortunately, he goes on, they will protect their interests legally in the only way they can -- by stopping playing cricket.TENNIS IS NOW BIG BUSINESS FOR LAWYERS, WITH TOP PLAYERS WORTH AS MUCH AS CORPORATE CLIENTS.

JESSICA SMERIN TAKES A LOOKWhen solicitor Mel Goldberg goes to Wimbledon late next month, he will not only be supporting existing clients, but also scouting for talented young players emerging on the courts, with a view to becoming their agent.Mr Goldberg, a partner at London firm Grower Freeman & Goldberg and best known for acting as a football agent, says: 'Agency work goes hand in hand with law.

When you're negotiating contracts, you have to get a lawyer if you're not one yourself.

In agency work, you do spend a lot of abortive time on the phone, but you know that it's you who is getting the deal put together.'In the sports industry, the relationship between lawyer and agent has recently become blurred.

Solicitors acting for individual tennis players are being particularly drawn towards a role which is both wider than the purely legal issues and more pro-active, in terms of generating business for the client, than is usual for a lawyer.Tennis players are peculiar sporting clients in that there is no team or club to act as a filter between them and their lawyers.

Acting for tennis players often comes close to private client work, requiring the same kind of personal relationship, the same kind of attention to details of the client's personal life, in addition to million-pound sponsorship deals.

But in tennis, the 'private' client is also a business worth more than some corporate clients.According to Brian Clark, the director of European legal affairs at IMG, which acts as agent for a number of big names in tennis, the emergence of tennis players who are major businesses in their own right is the third stage in the development of 20th century tennis, the second being marked by the shift in the status from amateur to professional.Sam Rush, a solicitor in the sports law department of City firm Bird & Bird, says: 'The top 40 or 50 tennis players are very successful businesses.

From a private practice perspective, basing your practice on a few individuals in tennis can now make economic sense.

The turnover of these clients is big, therefore it's worth putting a lot of time and effort into representing them, and effectively providing a one-stop shop for commercial representation.

Tennis players are very demanding towards their solicitors, and it's a very personal relationship.'Mr Rush's head of department, Justin Walkey, launched Bird & Bird's sports law department with just one client -- Stefan Edberg -- and now represents Greg Rusedski among others.

Mr Walkey stresses that his lawyers never act as agents for players, and that he does not believe that the role of a lawyer and an agent ought to be combined.

However, he says that despite the corporate nature of his work, he finds himself involved in many things which touch the individual players, and takes on the wider role of a business manager.Mr Walkey explains: 'With any individual client, there has to be a trusting relationship.

And with tennis players it goes further than the usual "these are your options, please give me my instructions".

You have to be more pro-active in negotiating deals.

It's a bit like what the Americans call the quarterback; you're the spider in the middle of the web, sitting there as the central adviser.

The agent, the accountants, the financial and investment advisers are all reporting to you.

The clients are so busy that they don't really have time to lo ok after their own business affairs, and a lot of them are very young and not particularly experienced in business.

As a client becomes more mature, you would expect them to become more responsible for their own affairs, but it's not usually the case with tennis players.'Mr Walkey says that some tennis players have the same individual turnover in a year as a significant company.

'If you compare the typical staffing structure surrounding a tennis player to what you have in a medium-sized quoted company, it's kind of crazy.

Increasingly, there's a trend towards individual sports stars having their own set up and their own people on a dedicated basis.

The agency system is not terribly economic; you pay the agent 20% when it would cost you about 4% to have your own professional set up.'He says this may lead to sports starts looking for more independent arrangements with their law firms.

Mr Walkey finds himself 'doing all sorts of stuff', from very high-value deals to sorting out plumbers.

'That's what happens when you offer a full service,' he says.

'I sometimes have to remind them that I went to law school, not plumbing school, and that my hourly rates mean that using me for the plumbing is not a very good idea.'Like many sports firms, Bird & Bird does not only represent individual players but covers the full commercial range of the sport, from the administration of disciplinary procedures to the marketing issues surrounding merchandising, endorsements, broadcasting rights and sponsorship.

One of the big issues in the tennis business at the moment is the gap between the pay for the top 150 or so players and the money available to the sport across the board.

As Wimbledon approaches, the annual row about whether it is right that women players receive less prize money than men is sure to flare up again, with the players' solicitors being actively involved.There is also the institutional side to the work.

The Lawn Tennis Association now has an in-house lawyer, Bruce Mellstrom, and niche sports firm Townleys acts for the International Tennis Federation (ITF).

Acting for the governing body is not as sexy as acting for players, concedes Townleys partner Darren Bailey, but the ITF fulfills a vital role.

'One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that the revenues generated don't all go to players, but are redistributed to open and improve facilities for the benefit of the game and development of young players,' he says.

He adds that he is coming up against an increasing range of legal issues as tennis strives 'to adapt to maintain its position as a premier sport'.For example, lawyers handling sponsorship and television deals for the less prestigious tournaments are becoming increasingly concerned that the tennis business is flagging internationally, with some tournaments having to buy in network coverage to support their corporate sponsorship.

A further pressing issue is the new points system for men, based on on-going performance rather than points racked up over the last year, which may give rise to some litigation over the coming months if contracts have specified a ranking whose attainment is altered by the new regime.However, Mr Goldberg, who has just been appointed as an arbitrator to the new sports dispute resolution panel, is hopeful that the growing push towards alternative dispute resolution in sports disputes, supported by the British Association for Sport and the Law, will encourage players to settle disputes quickly, amicably and with a minimum of negative publicity for themselves.Solicitors may have to suffer temper t antrums and strange demands from their tennis playing clients, but for most of them, their deep love and often deep involvement with the game is adequate compensation.

Mr Walkey is hopeful that his ten-year-old son has the makings of a tennis champion.

Bird & Bird may yet attain the giddy prestige of Oxfordshire firm Henmans, whose senior partner Tony Henman is often excused from meetings to fly to such places as Monte Carlo to watch his son Tim play.TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES MEAN BIG CHANGES FOR IP LAW AND SPORTS RIGHTS.

JEREMY FLEMING LOOKS AT SOME OF THE IMPLICATIONSLive televised action of athletes on roller-skates knocking each other to bits with each killer blow, caught by a strategic camera angle, with everyone fully sponsored and merchandised -- it may sound more like a combination of the latest Ridley Scott film Gladiator and the popular television show of the same name.

In fact, it is Rollerball, the classic film that prophesied an extreme future for sport.'Any Premiership footballer watching that film will recognise part of his life in it,' says David Hansel, one of a team of seven lawyers at Memery Crystal who act for sports clients.Mr Hansel says that intellectual property (IP) law affecting sport is not substantially changing, but the technology that affects such clients is undergoing a revolution.

Lawyers need to react quickly to these changes to protect their clients, he says.One problem lies in the different technologies looking to capitalise on sports and entertainment content.

For example, Mr Hansel says the current bidding battle for Premiership coverage rights highlights the conflict between satellite, digital and cable companies.

Sport represents the vital content that these technologies need in order to gain market dominance.Meanwhile, the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 makes no specific mention of the Internet, which must be interpreted in accordance with individual cases clarifying the law.Mr Hansel says the solution for lawyers acting for sports clients is very old-fashioned: drafting.

Because of the law's inability to account for recent technologies, the onus is firmly on the IP lawyer to make sure the contracts are carefully written to embrace all the possibilities.This is especially the case given an explosion in branding, according to Justin Walkey, head of IP at City media firm Bird & Bird, which has a burgeoning sports law practice.

Mr Walkey illustrates this with the example of a football fixture.

The event will include a league or federation, the home club, the individual players and the broadcasters -- all with their own brands and sponsors to protect.

Getting the contracts which dictate the brand rights is indispensable in order to avoid sponsors being badly let down (for example, if Adidas sponsors the venue, but Nike sponsors one of the teams).One effect of the current jostling for dominance among the different technologies, according to Mr Hansel, is the danger of litigation.

Companies may start to litigate to freeze competition and involve rivals in costly delayed actions in the High Court.

While praising the Chancery division of the High Court -- where IP actions are heard -- Mr Hansel says that the judiciary is 'arguably not aware of the modern perception of sport', and does not appreciate the commercial importance behind some actions.

Mr Hansel says personality rights need to be introduced in England and Wales.

'Most non-common law jurisdictions, notably America and the rest of Europe, have well-developed personality rights,' he says.In Britain, where such rights have never been established, lawyers must rely on passing-off rules to protect a sportsman's image on merchandise, which are much harder to found a case on.

This results is British sports stars bring actions for infringement against suppliers of goods on the continent, whereas they are incapable of doing so here.Nic Couchman, head of IP at Townleys -- the only dedicated sports law firm in the country -- agrees that with brands becoming the chief engine of the sports industry, the lack of protection for personality rights in this country complicates matters.

A client of Mr Couchman has recently been involved in litigation in France resulting from an action brought by Eric Cantona.

The former Manchester United player was suing in relation to the unauthorised use of his image in France on the cover of an English video called 100 Best English Goals.Mr Couchman also agrees that the attitude of the English courts is still undeveloped with respect to sports clients rights.

'They tend to think of sports merchandising in terms of memorabilia,' he says.

But things may be about to change.

The introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998 in October may, he says, be a catalyst to improve protection for sports players' images.Mr Couchman points out that the issue is not solely one of common law not being compatible with such rights.

In Australia, the common law has accommodated a more commercial approach, so passing off -- which British lawyers rely on in the absence of specific rights -- tends not to be as difficult to establish as it is in England, and therefore 'more realistically reflects the commercial reality'.The commoditisation of sport, says Mr Hansel, means that a lawyer acting for a sports celebrity will map out the components of the star and register as much as possible under the existing English IP rules.

For the purposes of making one's name into a trade mark, Mr Hansel says, a touch dryly, that he would recommend any sports star with a name like Smith or Jones to change it to something a bit less obvious -- to make it easier to register if the player hits the big time.Mr Couchman also edits Sports and Character Licensing magazine.

Mr Couchman says new technology -- with its potential for interactive participation and increased access to sports' paraphernalia -- is causing a frenzy with non-sporting brands eager to hitch a ride to a global audience.But branding begins at home, and it is clubs and players themselves who are currently shoring up their own images.

Manchester United has led the way in this respect, but clubs like Fulham -- for which Mr Couchman acts -- are following the strategy closely; ensuring that a tight group of sponsors receives co-ordinated publicity to enhance the club's brand.Mr Couchman has recently been rationalising photographers' contracts.

Traditionally freelance photographers recording sports events would sell their work to dedicated newspaper columns and then syndicate the work through agencies.

But this left the power over images in the hands of the paparazzi, and consequently clubs' brand images in the lap of the gods.

Hence Mr Couchman has been looking at creating tighter accreditation conditions for football and other sports.Mr Walkey says there is nothing new in branding being the underlying hard asset of sport.

It is the sports industry itself that is being revolutionised, he maintains.

'The industry is growing up,' he says, adding that the barometer of this transformation is reflected in the increasing interest and involvement of the major finance houses in sports.Like Mr Hansel, Mr Walk ey has been shoring up clients' brands.

But he says that this is as much a question of looking backwards as forwards.

The problem for clients now realising that they need to concentrate on their brands is that so much of their archive material -- dating back to times when television contracts and photographs were in the hands of a few broadcasters and agencies who held the whip when negotiating contracts -- lies scattered over different owners capable of using material at their own leisure.The first task for Mr Walkey in strengthening the brands of his clients, such as the Football Association, is to identify the owners of material relating to the client and gather it together, so that a controllable archive can be formed.

Now is the optimum time to be carrying out these exercises, he says, because digital technology permits optimum images to be created from the most worn old footage.

So it is vital for clubs, federations and individuals to have control over this potential bank of new images so that their brands can be controlled and sponsors attracted by powerful concentrated images.

Mr Walkey has recently assembled such an archive for the England football team.But does the struggle between competing interests to establish brand image spell doom for the future of sport? Although Mr Hansel sees flashes of Rollerball in the modern Premiership, Mr Walkey hopes that the industry has learned the dangers of over-saturation in sports such as boxing, where competing interests have led to a fragmented and weakened brand.