Action for Good Governance in international sport organizations

Head of the project at IESF:
Dr. Michael Groll
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Mittag

Period of research:
January 2012 – June 2013

Partners:
Danish Institute for Sport Studies/ Play the Game; Universities of Leuven, Utrecht; Loughborough and Ljubljana; Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration and the European Journalism Centre in Maastricht.

Funding:
European Commission
    
Contents of the project:
To achieve better governance in sport, many sports organisations need to revise their internal and external mechanisms to cope with the on-going commercialisation, professionalisation and globalisation of sport. The procedures of policy making as well as precautionary administrative measures to avoid cases of corruption, mismanagement and fraud in the future are increasingly important, as are public awareness and involvement in issues of governance in sport to. Although no one-size-fits-all reform solution exists, many underlying structural reasons for mismanagement and corruption are similar in different sports organisations. Through analysis of governance structures and standards in a number of international sports organisations a set of guidelines to be used as benchmarks has been developed.
These guidelines do not have the potential to impact the daily practice of sports organisations, but also to improve the awareness level and debate about governance in sport among important stakeholder groups such as media, public authorities, fans, sponsors and athletes.

Presentations:
Jürgen Mittag/Ninja Putzmann: Reassessing the Democracy debate in Sport. Alternatives to the one-association-one-vote-principle, Presentation at the Sport & EU 2012 Conference: Towards a networked governance in Sport, Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration, Lausanne Switzerland, 21/22June  2012.
Geraeerts Arnouts/Jens Alm/Michael Groll: The current status of international sports governance. Results of a test study by AGGIS-partners among international federations in 2012, Presentation at the European Sports Law and Policy study programme at KU Leuven, 6th February 2013.
Arnouts Geraeerts/Jens Alm/Michael Groll: The current status of international sports governance. Results of a test study by AGGIS-partners among international federations in 2012, Presentation at the Sport & EU 2013 Conference: Sport in times of crisis. Opportunities and challenges in Istanbul, 26-29 June 2013.

Publications:
Contributions of Michael Groll, Jürgen Mittag and Ninja Putzmann in: Jens Alm (ed.): Action for Good Governance in International Sports Organisations. Final Report, Copenhagen 2013.