Ecuador's sports minister reviews his legal career in an exclusive interview with The Impact Lawyers where he explains the challenges of his ministry and his experience as a sports lawyer with renowned sportsmen and women in Ecuador

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José David Jiménez: ‘We want young people to do sport and not be easy prey for organised crime’.

With a meteoric career, José David Jiménez (Guayaquil, Ecuador 1990), is currently his country's Minister of Sport, appointed in September 2024.

With a first-class legal background, he has combined his work experience in the private and public sectors. He has advised athletes and has held positions such as legal director at the National Anti-Doping Unit of Ecuador (UNADE) and legal representative before the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). He is a university lecturer and has published legal articles in numerous publications. He has made time in his busy schedule for The Impact Lawyers.

The Impact Lawyers (TIL): You have been Minister of Sport in the Ecuadorian Government for a very short time, since 2 September 2024. What did it mean for your professional career to get this far?

José David Jiménez (J.D.J.): The truth is that it is very important for my professional career, since I have always been involved in sport on the legal side. I specialised in sports law in Madrid in 2019 and I never imagined that my studies or my preparation would lead me to a position as important as being the highest authority in sport in my country. It is a challenge that I took on with great confidence and responsibility. Ecuadorian sport is currently booming, and to be leading this State portfolio at this particular moment is a challenge and an obligation for me. A very big commitment.

TIL: What challenges do you face in your ministry?

J.D.J: We are currently working to give Ecuadorian sport the importance it deserves. And this has different aspects that concern sport. Sport is made up of high performance, recreation, training, and a long etcetera. And for this there are different sports organisations that are in charge of each of these. We attack the different problems that our sport may have.

We have services for citizens in the 24 provinces of the country. One of them, ‘Actívate’, which is a dance therapy, with which we get people of all ages to come and do sport in a fun way. This project has been very well received by the population and we have had to increase it in many parts of the country. We have more than 350 instructors in charge of this service and we are making a significant investment.

The other is ‘Vamos a la Cancha’, which is football, basketball and volleyball training for children and young people, also in the 24 provinces of the country, and what we are looking for here is for young people to play sports in their neighbourhoods and not find themselves on the streets as easy prey for organised crime. This has also been very well received, and we also have more than 400 instructors in different sports.

These projects arise from a recreational point of view, to avoid sedentary lifestyles, but also with a very important social purpose. The Ministry of Sport, together with the sports federations, is trying to ensure that as many sports as possible are practised in each province of Ecuador.

Now we are working on the formative part, providing the country with sports infrastructure, promoting the National Games and the National Junior Games. We are mobilising the youngest with the example of great Ecuadorian sportsmen and women who started this way, like Gerlon Congo, for example, who is a giant boxer for us. And many others: Neisy, Daniel Pintado, Lucía Yepes.

We are also working on a new high performance plan, for the first time, taking as a reference all the information provided by our athletes at the end of the Olympic cycle. When the Paris Paralympic Games were over, we started technical working groups with our representatives at the Games and in this way we designed a high performance plan, taking into account each discipline in its own particular way.

Why are we doing this? The answer is simple. The current high performance plan, which is currently in force, was created in 2019 and in 2019 the reality of Ecuadorian sport was totally different to the reality of our sport today. Ecuador is in a brutal sporting moment. We are no longer surprised to see that in any corner of the world there is an Ecuadorian lifting a medal.

TIL: And to carry out all these initiatives, how much money is earmarked for them in the general state budget?

J.D.J: Ecuadorian sport has been losing ground over the last 10/12 years, with budget cuts. This has been the first time in, dare I say, 10/11 years, that not a single dollar has been cut in the sport budget. And this was a commitment and an initiative of the President of Ecuador, who is a young and sporty person. He knows how important sport is for society, for the reconstruction of the social fabric of our country.

The first commitment was that, not to reduce the budget for sport, something that was fulfilled. Unfortunately, however, we are now in a lectionary year, which prevents us from making increases because by law, the same budget must be used in 2025 as in 2024. Nevertheless, we are working, since mid-2024, to present a request for a budget increase with two quite viable fundraising alternatives, which we believe will inject directly into the sports budget.

The budget is more or less 70 million dollars, where almost 80%, if not a little more, goes to transfers to sports organisations, be it the Ecuadorian Olympic Committee, National Sports Federations, Provincial Federations, etcetera. But what we have projected for the new high performance plan is exactly the same budget as the previous plan. When there is a commitment to work, we can demand and make visible that the resources arrive and arrive on time. We believe that by being thorough with this review, we will reach the budget we have for the high performance plan and it will be distributed in the best way.

TIL: You have spent many years advising important athletes. Have any of them made or are they making history in Ecuadorian sport?

J.D.J: As my specialisation is sports law, we have worked in different areas of sport, particularly with everything related to legal advice in football, which is obviously quite different from other disciplines. We have worked with Mimi Barona, who was our surfing representative in Tokyo, with different tennis players also in the formative stage, some of whom are already being called to form part of the Ecuadorian team in the Davis Cup. We have also worked with a golf athlete, with the Ecuadorian Padel Federation.

And well, also with a lot of football clubs and footballers. In the office we work with Moisés Caicedo and other national team athletes

TIL: How did your passion for sports law come about?

J.D.J: Well, the truth is that I am a frustrated sportsman, although I never reached high performance. I have been playing sports for as long as I can remember. I've coached ice hockey, tennis, football, basketball... But my sport is surfing, I've been doing it since I was 5 years old. Besides, I come from a family of sportsmen: my cousins play baseball and I have an uncle who was one of the most important basketball players the country has ever had. But, well, I studied law and while I was working in the profession I realised that it wasn't enough, that I wanted to do something that involved sport, and well, as there was no sports law here in Ecuador, I had to go to Madrid to specialise in it.

TIL: In your long sporting career, have you found any professional who has inspired you in your work?

J.D.J: Yes, of course, many. Before entering public service, when I was working in my office, I got to know athletes who did apnoea, marching... and I was seeing the needs they had, and I tried to help them with my knowledge and the tools offered by the State, at that time such as tax benefits for sports projects, and so I tried to find opportunities for them. And so I got to know many cases, from athletes who lacked money, to those who had nothing, and even to those who had more economic possibilities. But in a formative stage, it is not necessarily the money that is lacking, but also the vision that the leaders of the different sports organisations should have. So, we work a lot with the sports leaders, changing their mindset a little bit, in the sense that they have to manage themselves and look for alternatives, not just waiting for what the state can give, since in addition to the injection of state resources, we also have a considerable injection of resources from private enterprise.

TIL: Throughout your career you have also held very important positions, among them that of legal director of the National Anti-Doping Unit of Ecuador and you have been a legal representative before the World Anti-Doping Agency. What motivated you to dedicate yourself for several years to anti-doping justice?

J.D.J: Well, that's something that came up along the way, when I returned to Ecuador in 2020. We started this journey, since Ecuador was not complying with the regulations that were required, in the sense that we did not have an autonomous organisation, as required by the World Anti-Doping Code and the different bodies that make it up. So, we started a fight to create the National Anti-Doping Unit.

There used to be another organisation, but it was poorly created due to an administrative/bureaucratic issue, which prevented it from functioning properly and receiving resources. This was our motivation, in addition to the imminent sanctions we could face as a country at the sporting level if we did not comply with the requirements of the World Anti-Doping Code.

We embarked on this journey of creating UNADE, and finally, it was created in 2023. So, I like this part of the fight against doping very much, because it was born in a very noble way, almost at the end of the 90s, and already structured in UNESCO conventions, which shows how important it is in terms of health and sport, which should be accepted by all countries.

TIL: And do you think that clubs, leagues, federations and fans are sufficiently aware of the problem of doping?

J.D.J: Although I am no longer part of the unit, I still talk to the director and I am still concerned, because this is something that we created as a team and I cannot totally disassociate myself, emotionally speaking. They are still working very hard on education with different national sports federations. They are also constantly testing in and out of competitions, complying with what is required of our high-performance athletes in their different disciplines.

The National Anti-Doping Unit (UAD) goes to important competitions to carry out controls, such as, for example, the Pro Football League, cycling tours and South American, Pan-American and youth championships in different disciplines. So, we are complying, let's say, as a country, with the number of controls that the regional office of the UAD is demanding.

TIL: You have told us that until very recently there was no sports law degree in Ecuador. Do you think there is a need for training in this field in the country?

J.D.J: Of course. Now there is little training in sports law. The first one that existed in Ecuador was at the university where I am a professor, the Bolivarian University of Ecuador. I love teaching, I like to give classes. But my conviction is that, in order to improve the structure of Ecuadorian sport, we need to be directly involved with academia, from its different branches.

Sport is made up of sports psychology, sports nutrition, sports marketing, advertising, sports law and even economics. There are many branches that revolve around the structure of sport, and we believe that training is the way to strengthen this structure, through these careers that create truly qualified professionals, who know the needs of sport, from the administrative side to the sport itself.

TIL: What advice would you give to young people who are going to dedicate themselves to sport in the legal field?

J.D.J: To study. The truth is that master's degrees in sports law in different modalities are an investment. I am firmly convinced that it is not spending money, but investing in your future. I try to encourage young people who don't know what they want to specialise in and who have always been passionate about sport, but don't know how to complement, for example, their career as a journalist with sport, or their career as a lawyer with sport. I encourage them to look for alternatives both in Ecuador and abroad.

TIL: To get to know you a little better, what is your favourite film?

J.D.J: Interstellar.

TIL: A book you would recommend?

J.D.J: Sapiens: From Animals to Gods, by Yuval Harari.

TIL: A place to escape to?

J.D.J: The beach. Specifically the beach of Olon.

TIL: Do you have any memories of a teacher from your studies who made a special impression on you?

J.D.J: Of course, Juan de Dios Crespo.

TIL: Any favourite football team?

J.D.J: From Ecuador, Emelec, and in Spain I was very fond of Valencia.

TIL: Real Madrid or Barça? 

J.D.J.: Barça. Until Moisés Caicedo goes to play for Real Madrid, then I'll change teams without a problem.