Member Article

Manchester sports lawyer is UK’s first to qualify as a sporting director

Jeremy Moore, managing director and head of sports law at Manchester law firm CM Solicitors, has become the first lawyer to qualify as a sporting director.

Mr Moore, who has graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University’s two-year Master of Sport Directorship course along with high profile sports stars including Ashley Giles, David Moss, Lee Darnbrough and Michael Appleton, is now entitled to use the letters ‘MSD’ after his name.

The course, which is the first of its kind in the world, is designed to prepare sports people and other professionals for the sporting director role that is increasingly being seen as a strategic necessity for sports organisations.

Mr Moore said: “The MSD course gave me a real insight into the broad issues facing leaders in sport. I’m looking forward to putting this unique knowledge into use when working with our clients across the sporting world.”

CM Solicitors, whose specialist sports law division is known as CM Sports Lawyers, works with a number of professional sports organisations. The firm has advised football clubs in disputes including player Cristiano Montano’s 2013 dismissal by Oldham Athletic in the wake of police investigations into his involvement in spot-fixing, and Trannmere Rovers manager Ronnie Moore’s sacking by the club after he broke the Football Association’s betting rules in 2015.

Dr Sara Ward, programme director for the Manchester Metropolitan University MSD course, said: “While the course has attracted lots of former professional sports people, it has drawn professionals from a wide range of backgrounds with sport as the common theme. In many different ways our new graduates are playing an essential role in promoting sound governance and commercial leadership in sport.

“It’s fantastic to see our first group of MSD students graduate and it’s testament to their hard work and ambition that they have all succeeded on a course that is academically rigorous as well as being extremely practical.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Emma Kilmurray .