ABSTRACT
The concept of duty of care is under unprecedented scrutiny in the context of sport and, more specifically, with regard to sports coaching. Existing academic scholarship offers limited detailed analysis of the duty of care incumbent upon coaches, the majority of whom are volunteers. Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson’s recent and impressive ‘Duty of Care in Sport: Independent Report to Government’ adopts ‘a deliberately broad definition of “Duty of Care” ’. However, this chapter argues that should the concept of duty of care assume both a legal and extralegal meaning, this may result in conflation of moral and legal duties of care. This may expose coaches to a greater risk of negligence liability by potentially extending the legal obligations of amateur coaches beyond current limits. Accordingly, by analysing the duty of care incumbent upon sports coaches, within the context of the classic jurisprudential debate surrounding the relationship between law and morality, this chapter uncovers serious unintended ramifications of failing to more precisely distinguish between legal and moral duties of care in this area. Furthermore, the insights revealed in Chapter 1 appear likely to be of more widespread legal relevance, and not least in the burgeoning field of professional negligence.
