ST. PETERSBURG, May 21 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) — The National Center of Sport Arbitration has become fully operational in 2021 and is ready to hear sports and anti-doping cases. Applications from athletes, coaches and staff members will be accepted free of charge. 

The news was announced by Marina Pak, Arbitrator at the Arbitration Center at RSPP, General Secretary of the National Center of Sport Arbitration at the ANCO ‘Chamber of Arbitration for Sport’ at the Sports Law in Russia and the World: Current Issues discussion session held within the framework of the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum (SPBILF) 9¾. 

According to Pak, the Center was established as an alternative to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne to give some choice to athletes and let them save them much effort and many costs as the legislators provided an opportunity that cases of employees, athletes and coaches were heard without them paying a fee.

At the moment there are two claims on labor and disputes and one anti-doping dispute on the tribunal docket, Pak observed.

State Secretary - Deputy Minister of Sport of the Russian Federation Ksenia Mashkova said, in turn, that the Ministry of Sports, for its part, is ready to support the national sports arbitration institution and proposed to create a platform for resolving disputes within the BRICS (informal interstate association of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa - editor's note), on the basis of the Center.

Natalya Zaitseva, a member of the RUSADA Disciplinary Anti-Doping Committee, said that it is necessary to increase the level of knowledge of athletes in terms of their rights and obligations, and emphasized that in Russia it is necessary to carry out appropriate explanatory work with athletes and form a special standard of knowledge.