| Sport activities have always been an important part of social life in European countries, and have always been viewed with important functions in culture, education and society. In its process of market integration, the EU has always been considering sports activities as an important auxiliary method in promoting the establishment of a single EU market. Therefore, EU countries haven’t paid good attention to the state aid for sports. Some of them even hold the view that state aid is definitely reasonable considering the specific attributes of sports activities. However, with the deepening process of EU market integration, the economic values of sports activities have become all the more apparent. The model of commercial operation in sports activities has been more and more linked with commercial interests. As such, state aid for sports have attracted more and more attention, and more disputes have emerged on state aid for sports. Starting from the specific attributes of sports activities, the EU has gradually set law standards on state aid combined with the practical settlement of disputes. The European Commission has taken into consideration specific conditions and formulated many regulations, directives and provided detailed explanations on law stipulations. The European Commission has played an important part in auditing and supervising state aid for sports.Comparatively speaking, the development pattern of sports activities in China is different from that in EU countries. In spite of this, it will become more market-oriented with the constant reform of sports system. In particular, in 2014 and 2015, top-level designs involving sports reform have been unveiled, which makes it clear the direction of sports marketization. This article introduces EU State aid law for the purpose of providing experience and lessons to learn for state aid for sports in China.In detail, the first and second part of this article mainly introduces state aid rules for sport in EU, which includes the definition of state aid, the jurisprudential basis, the components and exemption and other contents. Having gone through over half a century, the state aid law in EU is a relatively well developed state aid control system. However, in terms of legal standards for state aid, it lags behind. In the laws of EU, the articles concerning state aid for sport are mainly from article 107 to 109.The third part of this article introduces four typical cases of state aid for sport. The aim is to help understand the implementation standards on State aid in the EU.The fourth part of this article mainly centers on suggestions put forward combining the previous analysis and the national situations in China. the marketization level of sports in China is low, but with the deepening reform in this regard, it will become more and more high. In the process, the commercial nature of sports will become apparent, which will intensify the competition for gaining interests. The EU stipulates that the state aid should be within the regulation reach of the law of competition, which is decided by its own conditions. Different as the state aid in China is from that of EU, the market competition exists. If the government provides state aid without limit in the area, it will result in a biased environment for market competition. Therefore, the country should put in place laws and regulations to regulate state aid for sports to foster and maintain a fair competition environment. |
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