A dispute over the shares, governance or assets of a sports club is a legal conflict like the struggle around any other legal person — and Georgia has no special court or statutory regime for such disputes in sport. This page explains the legal form the club and the federation carry under the Law on Sport, why their ownership disputes run through the general rules, and which norms create the frame within which those disputes are decided.
The Framework: The Legal Form of Sports Organisations
Under the eighth article of the Law on Sport, a public or other non-state sports organisation is a sports federation, association, club or other union that aims at the development of sport. The state fosters the development of these organisations' activity and involves them in the governance of sport; where necessary, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport may transfer individual powers to them and control their exercise. Under the same article these organisations conduct their activity in accordance with the law and other normative acts in force in the sphere of sport. From this it follows that questions of ownership of a club or federation are decided by the general rules attaching to the relevant legal form: the sporting specificity shapes the frame but does not transform the disputed relationships. An investor buying into a club, a founder challenging a resolution or a member contesting expulsion all stand on the same civil-law ground they would occupy outside sport.