The trouble with Ostarine: Jimmy Wallhead’s
16th March 2018
Features
Transparency International’s proposals for sport to change
Transparency International published its Global Corruption Report: Sport, which sets out a roadmap of reforms that international sports organisations (ISOs) should implement in order to restore public trust in sport. The report says that sport, which is now an industry that generates US$145 billion per year, needs to acknowledge that it has a problem. ‘The pace of building integrity in sport has been too slow, and now it must be rapidly accelerated’, writes Gareth Sweeney, Editor of the 372-page report.
A poll of 25,000 football fans in 28 countries found that 69% have no confidence in FIFA; however 50% said that FIFA does have a chance to restore its reputation. Just under half (43%) said that the corruption scandals at world football’s governing body are affecting their enjoyment of the game; and 60% said that they would not choose any of the candidates standing in the FIFA Presidential election on 26 February.
As such, Transparency International is putting forward a series of recommendations to ISOs and governments on how sport should be governed in the future. These include:
• Sports organisations to be open about how they operate, the money they make and how they spend it.
• Cities and countries who host major sporting events to ask their residents whether and how this should be done and to involve them in the planning.
• Big events to ensure sufficient safeguards to stop corruption, human rights, labour and environmental abuses.
• Sponsors to promote integrity and hold sports organisations to similar same standards of good governance, human rights, sustainable as they should apply to their supply chain.
• Governments and intergovernmental organisations to hold sports organisations to account and demand greater transparency so that deals cannot be done behind closed doors, and the public can see how their money is being spent.
‘Tackling the roots of corruption must come primarily from within the sports community, though, starting with an acknowledgement of the problem’, writes Sweeney. ‘Internal reform must be open to external perspectives’.
