Governance and Management of Professionalized Sport Organizations

Professionalized sport organizations have to develop proper governance and management since the autonomy of sport is challenged by its commercialization and by public authorities. Corporate governance involves “a set of relationships between a company’s management, its board, its shareholders and other stakeholders. Corporate governance also provides the structure through which the objectives of the company are set, and the means of attaining those objectives and monitoring performance are determined” The definition of corporate governance cannot apply as such to sport organizations. The Olympic Charter gives a clear view of the main challenges of governance in sport organizations. It states that “recognizing that sport occurs within the framework of society, sports organizations within the Olympic Movement shall have the rights and obligations of autonomy, which include freely establishing and controlling the rules of sport, determining the structure and governance of their organizations, enjoying the right of elections free from any outside influence and the responsibility for ensuring that principles of good governance be applied". (Olympic Charter, 2011). National and international sport organizations are encouraged to endorse the Basic Universal Principles of Good Governance for the Sport Movement. These principles were adopted by the Olympic Congress in Copenhagen 2009 and incorporated in the Ethical code of IOC in 2010 and in the Olympic Charter in 2011. President Jacques Rogge (IOC, 2013) stated that “the IOC and the sports movement in general have a social responsibility - to provide access to sports practice, and in so doing to spread the values of sport to all sections of society." In this presentation we underline the architecture and positive drivers of governance and social responsibility in Olympic sport organizations. Failures in the process are the other side of the coin. A day to day fight against corruption, gigantism in mega sport events, doping, (illegal) betting, match fixing, violence, racism and all form of harassment is requested. We give some perspectives and examples on how to engage national and international sport organizations in this process from a global to a local perspective, from Elite level to Sport for All level.