Merry Christmas sherdoggers: I'm wondering if anyone from the UK can explain how sports (in general) or MMA is regulated in the UK? Is there broad regulation or is it left to the individual countries (i.e. England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland)? Is there any regulation by local governments? Just curious, I know the UFC self-regulates their events when they go to the UK using the Unified Rules - I assume its because the government isn't doing it. Also, if anyone knows of any good online sources that explain the regulatory framework, I'd appreciate them. Thanks in advance for any helpful insight/information - cheers!
I've had a few fights in England and from what i've seen the organisations have gotten together to set up the frame work rules/weight class wise. There is zero interaction with any form of government branches.
We don't have any state athletic type legislature like y'all do. It's just up to the promotions to do whatever they want. It doesn't really matter what the rules are as far as I'm aware; Cage Rage for example didn't use Unified Rules and allowed kicks to grounded opponents *ish. Someone more involved might have a better insight, but to the best of my knowledge that's about that.
Google Safe MMA UK, set up here recently to try and act as a an athletic commission. Local MMA here is a bit wild west tbh, too many promotions but the talent pool is increasing.
I was going to say this. While it isnt a requirement, its definitely a step in the right direction. The state of local uk promotions is pretty bad as they aren't governed by anyone.
Yeah, I think BAMMA is still the biggest UK-centric promotion, but MMA's popularity is slowly increasing here in the UK, so with that more and more orgs will spring up.
