1. AI Tools and Authorship: AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship because they cannot take accountability for the submitted work or understand the implications of ethical commitments. Therefore, in strict adherence to the COPE Position Statement on Authorship and AI Tools, AI technologies, including chatbots and large language models, must not be listed as an author or co-author on any manuscript submitted to Sport-Mu.

2. Disclosure, Transparency, and AI Threshold: Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must transparently disclose this usage. In addition, manuscripts submitted to Sport-Mu are screened using Turnitin AI detection, and the total AI-generated content must not exceed a maximum threshold of 30%. As mandated by the COPE Guidelines on Artificial Intelligence in Scholarly Publishing, authors must explicitly state the specific AI tool utilized, the version used, and a clear description of how it was applied within the Materials and Methods section, or in a dedicated acknowledgment section of the manuscript.

3. Author Accountability and Responsibility: The human authors hold sole responsibility for the entirety of the manuscript's content, including those parts produced or assisted by an AI tool. Following the principles outlined in the COPE Position Statement on AI, authors must carefully verify the accuracy, validity, and appropriateness of any AI-generated output. Authors are fully accountable for ensuring there is no plagiarism or uncredited text generation in the manuscript and must ensure that all sources are properly cited and referenced.

4. AI and the Peer Review Process: Confidentiality is a fundamental principle of the peer review process. Reviewers and editors must not upload submitted manuscripts into unauthorized generative AI tools for evaluation or summary, as this breaches the author's privacy and proprietary rights. This protection of unpublished research aligns directly with the confidentiality requirements established in the COPE Core Practices and the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. Any breach of confidentiality using AI tools will be treated as serious ethical misconduct.