Flawed play book fails to realise its potential

This book – part of a series of encyclopedias – comprises 94 chapters from scholars around the world. The entries are generally well written, and follow a logical and readable structure, but are, by their very nature, quite brief. One gets the feeling that much of the information could be easily found with a quick Google search. Perhaps the best feature is the bibliographies, which are very handy for guiding the reader to key case law and analysis of each topic. 

While the individual chapters may be adequately constructed, the format of the book is fundamentally flawed. The choice of categories seems scattergun, and there is a great deal of overlap. For example, if you want to read about issues arising that relate to transgender athletes, then you need to read the entries titled ‘Eligibility, Fairness in Sport’, ‘Gender diversity in sport’ and ‘Intersex athletes in sport’. It would surely be more useful if these were grouped together in one longer chapter, as they would be in a conventional textbook.

There are some oddities, even if one has no quibbles with the format. Ten countries plus one region (the Caribbean) get separate chapters, but it is unclear why they were selected. And once the encyclopaedia reaches ‘T’, there are several entries beginning with ‘The’, which defeats the point of an alphabetical ordering system.

The best sports teams are greater than the sum of their parts. While this book contains some fine individual contributions, they are not well organised and do not fit together effectively. There is a feeling of unfulfilled potential.

Lee Wall is an associate solicitor at Irvings Law in Liverpool