Introduction The concern of the chapter will be to examine the normative rule structure concerning sport. There is clearly a structure or hierarchy of such normative rules. The term ‘normative’ indicates that they are designed to be prescriptive and are concerned with ‘ought (not) may (not) or can (not), in relation to behaviour’. 1 Sport as a social practice is highly rule-bound. Individual sports are regulated by their own dedicated constitutional rulebooks and adjudication machinery. The volume of rules varies between different sports. Some are particularly multifarious. Rules in sport exist for both its organisation and playing (so-called ‘game rules’). Additionally, there have been relatively new developments in the form of explicit codes of ethics, which are largely informal but written normative statements. Sport is also surrounded by strategies and practices that are not explicitly stated and recorded but partly amount to the ‘working’ or ‘playing culture’ of particular sports. The interaction of sports’ internal rules and the infl uence of the law are also important; the internal rules of sport need to be examined before the role of the law in sport can be fully evaluated.