Should sportspeople be liable for criminal charges on the field of play?
Should sportspeople be liable for criminal charges on the field of play?
Jeremy WilsonWed, November 4, 2026 at 1:07 PM UTC
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Andorra and Tenerife players were visibly distraught following the collision between Jesus de Miguel and Jesus Owono - AP Photo
The death of Tenerife striker Jesús de Miguel was announced at 9am on Tuesday. By 3pm, Spanish police had confirmed that Andorra goalkeeper Jesús Owono would be investigated for potential involuntary manslaughter following a challenge that had taken place inside the centre circle. It is a tragic and shocking situation which, amid the flood of grief, also raises complex moral and legal questions for sport.
Should the field of play offer immunity from normal criminal processes? To what extent should even fatal risk be considered part and parcel of high-speed contact sport? And what duty of care do participants owe one another while often competing for millions in what can certainly feel like a win-at-all-costs environment?
Although few would want sport to suddenly become an excessive focus for solicitors, criminal investigators and coroners, the idea that the field of play can stand apart from the law of the land is surely misguided. Yes, you consent to a certain risk once you step into a sporting arena – and the degree must vary according to the accepted norms of the specific sport – but there are also limits and responsibilities.
On the same day that De Miguel’s death was announced, The Argus in Sussex reported how a footballer was knocked unconscious with an alleged “unprovoked” punch that broke his jaw during Saturday’s match between Midhurst & Easebourne Community and Emsworth Town. The match was abandoned. The police, rather than the organisers of this particular competition (the Malcolm Simmonds Memorial Cup), are the appropriate investigating body here. A study just this week of football referees in Wales found that a quarter had been physically assaulted.
The rare potential for civil personal injury claims has also been rightly established in England following in-game incidents. Dani Czernuszka was left paraplegic after a tackle during her first amateur rugby match in 2017. In this case, the High Court heard that Natasha King had told other players that she was going to “break” Czernuszka before what was described as a “reckless…belly flop” tackle. Mr Justice Spencer stressed in the case that “sport is not exempt from, or immune to, the law of negligence” although it was also made clear that errors of judgment, oversight or lapses in attention did not automatically amount to negligence, nor that an illegal tackle necessarily met that threshold. A multitude of circumstances had been taken into account.
It was also not until last year that Omar Elbanna’s personal injury claim was finally won (following an appeal by the defendant) after life-changing spinal injuries were sustained in a rugby match in 2017 following what was found to be a reckless tackle from behind by Tom Clark while the ball was in the air. Elbanna’s legal representative Michael Hardacre, a partner in the public liability team at Express Solicitors, stresses that such claims are rigorously tested. “These cases in contact team sports are very, very hard to win,” he told Telegraph Sport. “We had a crucial 30 seconds of footage which showed how dangerous the tackle was. There is no sense of any floodgates being opened at all. Without the video evidence we would have had no chance of getting this off the ground.”
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Criminal proceedings for in-game incidents (rather than off-the-ball assaults on fellow players or officials) are even harder to find. Roy Keane, was questioned by Greater Manchester Police for his notorious challenge on Alf-Inge Haaland but no further action was taken.
In English law, the guiding sporting case remains that of Mark Barnes in 2004, who was convicted of grievous bodily harm following a tackle in football that broke Christopher Bygraves’s leg before having the conviction quashed on appeal. In his judgment, Lord Harry Woolf observed that most organised sports have their own disciplinary procedures and that criminal prosecution should be reserved only for situations where “the conduct is sufficiently grave to be properly categorised as criminal”. Ordinarily mistimed tackles and collisions, then, are almost never treated as criminal matters, and even off-the-ball actions would require an unusual level of recklessness or negligence.
Different sports also give rise to differing assessments of reasonable risk. The genuine potential for accidental tragedies is also acknowledged. Boxers or participants in motor sport, for example, accept an inherent degree of fatal risk, even if the organisers have a wider duty of care. During the 1990s, the death of Ayrton Senna and the brain damage suffered by Michael Watson following his fight with Chris Eubank prompted significant overhauls of safety procedures.
Similarly, while the cricketer Phillip Hughes’s death in 2014 after being struck by a short-pitched delivery was described by the New South Wales coroner as “a tragic accident”, subsequent safety recommendations included modified helmets and neck protectors. As football remains in collective mourning, it feels far too early to draw firm conclusions from De Miguel’s specific case. The way goalkeepers can now play increasingly akin to a sweeper has been discussed in the context of whether some sort of rule adjustment might be considered.
Although police in Spain have opened an investigation into possible involuntary manslaughter following De Miguel’s death, it should be stressed that any death in Spanish law that is deemed “non-natural” does trigger a judicial review. And, while that review remains ongoing, Santa Cruz de Tenerife chief prosecutor José Luis Sánchez-Jáuregui has already told Spanish news agency EFE that he regards the ultimate prospect of criminal proceedings as “very unlikely”.
After paying tribute to De Miguel, Owono’s team-mate Lautaro Spatz said on Wednesday that the goalkeeper had been “deeply affected” by what has happened. “Those of us who know him know the kind of person he is, how much he is suffering at this moment and that he would never intentionally hurt anyone,” he said.
And so to the above question. Should sportspeople be liable for criminal charges on the field of play? Yes, but only in truly exceptional circumstances.
Source: “AOL Sports”
