ABSTRACT
As the field of production of sport spectacle has emerged as an autonomous social universe, it has managed to produce a relatively independent regulatory apparatus that shows itself to be capable of imposing legal constraints within the territories that receive its events. This chapter seeks to map central rules and instances of arbitration that conduct the field of production of sport spectacle, with special emphasis on the legal instruments that make this field’s control over the city viable. The sophisticated regulatory apparatus that the IOC has developed over the course of more than a century to control Olympic Game host cities has – in addition to serving as a model for FIFA’s actions – validated the naturalization of demands that FIFA makes of Football World Cup host countries, although FIFA established equivalent regulations more than a decade after the IOC. This regulatory apparatus does not present itself as completed; instead, it maintains itself in constant transformation. Confronting new challenges implies incorporating new strategies and new discourses.
