Sport Governance

An introduction

Neil King

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317225638
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Commerce
• Categoria: Gouvernance d'entreprise

Sport governance has become an increasingly widespread subject for research and teaching in sports studies. This engaging and accessible textbook examines the governance of sport organisations in a changing political, legal, financial and socio-cultural context. It explains how sport organisations are governed, explores the issues and challenges faced by those governing sport today, and looks ahead to how sport can be governed better in the future.

Covering sport at all levels, from community organisations and national governing bodies to international organisations such as the IOC and FIFA, this text examines key components of governance, such as legal and regulatory frameworks, stakeholding, performance, compliance and the reform of the non-profit sector in line with corporate governance. This text is also timely given that recent corruption scandals in sport have served to highlight the central importance of good governance in sport. Its nine chapters draw upon more than thirty international case examples across a range of sports including athletics, football, gymnastics, hockey, rowing, rugby, badminton and tennis.

With extensive lists of learning activities and resources, original empirical research and insights into the politics of policymaking and implementation, this textbook is essential reading for any course on sport governance, policy, management or development.

1
SPORT GOVERNANCE

Infrastructure and reform

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the completion of this chapter, students should be able to:

• outline the organisation and infrastructure for sport governance at the international and national levels;

• explain the reform of sport governance in the last two decades;

• assess the factors shaping sport governance; and

• critically evaluate the key governance issues and challenges facing sports organisations.

The infrastructure for sport governance

The sport sector consists of government bodies, Non-Profit Sports Organisations (NPSOs) including national governing bodies (NGBs) for specific sports, regional and county structures, leagues, associations and local-level sports clubs, and a raft of commercial organisations including sponsors. If the sector is viewed as a hierarchy, then international sports bodies sit above the national, regional and local levels of sport governance, with membership afforded to representatives of specific nations. Each country or nation state has a different infrastructure for sport, from almost wholly government (or state) run to almost wholly operated by non-profit (or voluntary) bodies. However, there are many commonalities across nation states, especially between Western nations. Hierarchies or networks are problematic to illustrate in diagrammatic form due to their complexity, but also due to the fact that the sport sector infrastructure changes, often on a regular basis. Nonetheless, a simple figure is included here (see Figure 1.1).

FIGURE 1.1 The infrastructure of international sport

International sports organisations can be separated into four types.

1. single sport, such as FIFA and the IAAF;

2. multi-sport, such as the IOC and Commonwealth Games Federation;

3. associations of clubs, such as the European Clubs Association, or athletes, such as the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP);

4. regulators, such as the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

All of these organisations are non-governmental, non-profit organisations. Nonetheless, these organisations have relationships with commercial bodies and with national and international government bodies (Foster, 2006). The location of major organisations such as the IOC and FIFA in Switzerland reflects their financial orientation, given the taxation advantages (Chappelet and Kuber-Mabbot, 2008, 2010). The expansion in the number and size of international sports bodies has in part been due to the rapid commercialisation of (professional) sport since the 1980s, resulting in resource-rich organisations such as the IOC and FIFA. It is important to understand relationships between such organisations and governments and regulatory bodies, and with transnational companies in order to understand the political and ethical issues that have arisen in recent years.

As a result of a series of ‘scandals’ and weak governance (Numerato et al., 2013), international sports organisations such as FIFA are undergoing reform, and sport governance across a range of countries has taken shape in recent years. For example, Parent and Patterson (2013) analyse the evolution of the Canadian sports system and governance changes related to hosting the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. Sport in Australia has experienced its own reform process (Stewart et al., 2004) and there has been significant policy and governance developments in countries across Europe (Bergsgard et al., 2007). The role of the EU and sports law in shaping governance is addressed in Chapter 4. Elsewhere, a body of literature has emerged on policy and governance change across different sports in different countries. For example, Smolianov (2013) analyses the Russian Modern Pentathlon Federation in the context of political change; Bester (2013) assesses the unique governance challenges facing Cycling South Africa; Hong and Fuhua (2013) trace the governance of sport in China from state-centred to semi-autonomous; and Dorsey (2016) examines sport governance in North Africa and the Middle East, where sport is shaped by the state intervention and the politics of the region. This text will explore the key themes in sport governance with reference to case examples, although not all countries or sports can be considered due to the limitations of space. Two major international sports organisations and one regulatory body that have had a significant level of influence on sport governance at the national and local levels are presented here as examples of powerful bodies shaping the sport sector.

International Olympic Committee

The IOC has the overall (legal) responsibility for the Olympic Games and other games using the Olympic name; its key role is to promote the Olympic ‘Movement’. The organisation is overseen by a 15-member executive board and a president. It is an association of 205 National Olympic Committees, with European members making up the majority membership. There are also 35 Olympic Federations, and many NGBs are also members (39 alone in the USA, for example). There are also Organising Committees for the Olympic Games (OCOGs), of which LOCOG was one for the London 2012 Olympic Games. A president is elected every four years to oversee this vast hierarchy. The IOC has acquired significant influence over the development of sport in part due to the sale of broadcasting rights, marketing and a deepening relationship with multinational commercial partners. Key partners include WADA (see the case example to follow) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) (see Chapter 3). The IOC has been subject to organisational change (Zakus and Skinner, 2008) following criticisms of its governance (Mallon, 2000).

FIFA

FIFA is a hierarchical organisation with a president at the top of the pyramid supported by eight vice-presidents and an executive committee. The president is elected every four years and the vice-presidents are appointed through ‘mysterious … combination of election, patronage and historical precedent’ (Sugden and Tomlinson, 1998). Various sub-committees (e.g. refereeing, tournaments) are responsible for specific components of FIFA’s infrastructure. FIFA also has six regional (and independent) confederations that are: UEFA, CONMEBOL (South America), CONCACAF (Central and North America), CAF (Africa), AFC (Asia) and OCF (Oceania). As a result, these regional power bases can support or challenge the centralised structure of governance. For example, UEFA generates significant income and proposed separating from FIFA in the 1990s. Given the wealth of FIFA and its power to decide who will host the football World Cup, senior members ‘experience a lifestyle akin to that enjoyed by eminent world politicians, international celebrities and royalty’ (Sugden and Tomlinson, 1997: 52). This, in turn, has led to investigations into the governance of FIFA (Jennings, 2006; Jennings and Sambrook, 2000) that will be addressed later in this text.

World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)

WADA emerged from growing concerns regarding doping in sport dating back to the 1960s (Houlihan, 2002). By the 1980s, recognition emerged of a need for harmonisation of rules and out-of-competition testing, given significant differences in the method of tackling doping across sports and across different countries with differing resources. Accredited laboratories for testing and a list of banned substances emerged over time, but it was not until the 1998 Tour de France that a tipping point was reached when governments and police agencies became involved, opening criminal investigations. Thus doping was no longer an issue for governing bodies of sport alone to address. Subsequently, WADA was established in November 1999 prior to the 2000 Olympic Games.

Today, governments and the Olympic Movement share a commitment to fund anti-doping measures and share representation on WADA’s council and executive bodies. Moreover, a World Anti-Doping Code has been established to address: definitions of doping, prohibited substances, procedures for testing, sanctions and appeals and education and research (David, 2008). However, challenges remain for WADA that include: difficulties of harmonisation and compliance across sports and countries; legal challenges from athletes; enforcing the monitoring of athletes (the ‘whereabouts’ rule); and addressing the networks involved in doping (Reid and Kitchin, 2013). Additionally, a report (WADA, 2015, 2016) cited significant doping issues in athletics and questioned the role of the IAAF as the international governing body in addressing the issue effectively. Doping and the role of WADA are addressed further in later sections of this text (Houlihan, 1999, 2000; UNESCO, 2012).

In terms of the national infrastructure for sport, this differs per country, but for most there exists a raft of NPSOs, from NGBs to regional or county bodies to local sports clubs and associations. These organisations work in partnership with the government department dedicated or partly dedicated to sport (e.g. the DCMS in England), alongside other departments that oversee school sport and local authority provision for sport, and ‘arms-length’ government agencies (e.g. Sport England and other UK sports councils) that have oversight for grass-roots sport; in elite sport it is UK Sport that oversees performance-related objectives. The non-profit sector has representation from an ‘umbrella’ organisation, namely the Sport and Recreation Alliance (SRA). In the UK it is local authorities that are the major provider of community sport (see King, 2009). Further, a raft of commercial sports organisations and non-sport organisations are in partnership with NPSOs.

National governance of sport: the policy context

Political priorities as manifested in public policy have had a significant impact on sport governance. A central tension in the UK and European context and in Australia and Canada, for example, has been between investment in elite sport and investment in the goal of mass participation (Bergsgard et al., 2007; Collins, 2008; Green, 2006, 2007, 2009; Green and Houlihan, 2005; Houlihan, 1997; Houlihan and White, 2002; Oakley and Green, 2001; O’Boyle and Bradbury, 2013; Stewart et al., 2004). A number of these authors have noted a shift towards an emphasis on elite sport, particularly in the last decade, with consequences for the governance of sport by NPSOs, as is discussed in the following section. It can also be observed that, despite differences in the relationship between the state (or national or regional government more specifically) and NPSOs, a policy convergence towards elite sport has been demonstrated in Western countries in part based on the pursuit of success in the Olympic Games and other mega-events. However, as Bergsgard et al. (2007) note in comparing policy in England, Canada, Germany and Norway, national policy and sport governance differ because of historical, cultural and socio-eco...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of abbreviations
• List of illustrations
• List of case examples
• Introduction to the study text
• 1 Sport governance: Infrastructure and reform
• 2 Understanding sport governance
• 3 Administration and sport governance
• 4 Legal and regulatory aspects of sport governance
• 5 Stakeholding in sport governance
• 6 Performance in sport governance
• 7 Good governance
• 8 Compliance in sport governance
• 9 Governance challenges in the next decade
• Appendix: learning resources
• Index