Good governance in sport: a survey of UK national governing bodies of sport

This report presents the findings from a research project focusing on the governance of national governing bodies of sport (NGBs) in the UK. Governance has become an increasingly important issue that NGBs in the UK have had to address over the last decade due to examples of poor management, financial failure, and increased public funding for sport that have resulted in the need for more professional sports administrative structures. These issues have been addressed during the last decade by UK Sport and the Sports Councils as part of a Modernisation Programme aimed at improving NGB governance. The objective of this research project was to analyze standards of governance at UK NGBs and consider the extent to which some of the recommendations from the Modernisation Programme have been implemented. It is hoped that this will be the first of an annual research project focusing on these issues and that future reports will be able to track trends and changes in the way that NGBs are governed in the UK. The research took place between October 2009 and January 2010 and has been carried out by a team of three researchers from the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre, a research centre in the Department of Management at Birkbeck, University of London. The research team carried out an online survey in which all NGBs recognised by each of the four home country sports councils – Sport England, Sport Northern Ireland, sportscotland and the Sports Council for Wales – were invited to take part. The findings of the report are based on responses provided by 60 NGBs. The report presents detailed analysis of three key areas relating to NGB governance: the board and committee; human resource management; and stakeholder management and corporate responsibility

Bidding for major sporting events: key issues and challenges faced by sports governing bodies in the UK

Executive summary: The next decade has been described by the government as a ‘golden decade for sport’ due to the variety of internat ional sport events that the UK is due to host. These include mega events such as the London 2012 Olympics and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, major events such as the 2019 Cricket World Cup, and a large number of major showcase sport events including the World Squash Championships and the World Modern Pentathlon Championships. The UK is considered to be one of the le ading nations in the sport event market and sport governing bo dies (NGBs) in the UK maintain a strong reputation for stagi ng well-organised sport event s. However, bidding for the rights to host mega sport event s, one-off events, and international showcase sport events has become more competitive over the last decade. There is a need to address the issues that NGBs face when bidding to host international sport events to ensure that the UK remains a competitive venue for sport events

The 'codification' of governance in the non-profit sport sector in the UK

1. Research question: Codes of governance have proliferated in recent years, yet academic research on why boards adopt and implement codes remains limited. This research focuses on the non-profit sport sector in the UK and looks at why codes have been adopted by a board of a non-profit sport organisation. 2. Research methods: The research draws on a longitudinal case study of board processes in a national governing body of sport in the UK, drawing on non-participant observation of board and committee meetings, interviews and document analysis. 3. Results and Findings: We identify that the initial adoption of a code of governance is a way to create external legitimacy. Once adopted, a code of governance can strengthen internal legitimacy and reinforce board members’ perceptions that the board is well governed. These two processes of legitimising are mutually reinforcing, serving to ensure that codes of governance become institutionalised at the board level. At the same time, while codes typically emphasise the importance of board members making autonomous decisions, in our case board members perceived that codes often constrained board autonomy. 4. Implications: This is the first article to provide an ‘insider’, board-level perspective on code adoption in the non-profit sport sector. It also enhances debate on the role of legitimacy in code adoption, by distinguishing between external legitimising as a formal, impersonal process, and internal legitimising, which typically unfolds through discussion, negotiation and reflection

Corporate social responsibility and social partnerships in professional football

Within the professional football industry one of the most prominent ways to address corporate social responsibility is through a social partnership involving a range of organizations such as a Community Sports Trust (CST), a professional football club, business organizations and local authorities. These partnerships are responsible for the delivery of community initiatives around a range of social issues. This article seeks to understand the managerial aspects of this type of social partnership, and in particular the objectives and motivations for partnering, by drawing on three analytical platforms that take into account how differences between sectors affect social partnerships. Based on a series of interviews, it is shown that organizations get involved in social partnerships for different reasons and perceive the partnerships in different ways; that from an individual organizational perspective it is difficult to perceive a social partnership entirely in the context of one of the theoretical platforms; and that despite what would appear to be a strong sense of homogenization of organizational form across the sector there are significant differences between social partnerships. The article concludes by arguing that further research is needed to better understand the differences between social partnerships

“It’s just a Trojan horse for gentrification”: austerity and stadium-led regeneration

Austerity was the driving principle behind the UK Coalition Government Comprehensive Spending Review in October 2010, with local government facing a disproportionately high share of the spending cuts. Research has focused on the impact of ‘austerity urbanism’ (Peck, 2012; Watt and Minton, 2016) and urban regeneration (Dillon and Fanning, 2015; Pugalis, 2016), however there is relatively little focus on sports-led regeneration. This article presents case study research of the stadium-led regeneration project involving Tottenham Hotspur FC and the London Borough of Haringey, focusing on the community perceptions of urban regeneration. It has two aims: first, to understand the local authority’s approach to regeneration in the context of the austerity agenda; and second, to understand how this approach was perceived by, and the impact on, those communities living within the geographical locality of the developments. Three themes emerged: first, that austerity led the local authority to adopt a pragmatic approach to regeneration; second, that regeneration in a period of austerity is perceived by local communities as a strategy of gentrification; and third, concerns over the lack of community consultation served as a stimulus for community engagement. Two implications arising from this research are that while community groups in Tottenham had limited success in gaining major changes to the stadium-led regeneration in Tottenham they have arguably been able to slow down the process. Moreover, they have been successful in bringing together diverse groups across the community to share knowledge in order to challenge further proposals from Haringey Council