Are sports governing bodies finally on the road to reform?

In the midst of a growing corruption scandal and investigations by US and Swiss authorities, Sepp Blatter has announced his intention to stand down as FIFA President pending a still to be scheduled extraordinary election to select his replacement. At the press conference announcing his resignation, Blatter acknowledged that, “FIFA needs a profound overhaul”.

Anyone following the corruption and human rights crises that have dogged soccer’s governing body and its choice of World Cup venues in recent years recognises that fundamental reforms of FIFA’s governance are long overdue. They’ll also likely warn not to expect dramatic reforms anytime soon.

Ongoing investigations could take months to reach their conclusion. Moreover, FIFA’s machinations as it attempts to overcome its current crisis will also take time, and cannot be guaranteed to result in the accountability, transparency and good governance improvements for which so many inside and outside of FIFA are hoping.

Nonetheless, FIFA’s leadership would do well to survey the shifting landscape of mega-sporting event governance as they plan for the future. Significant changes are underway on a number of fronts that should inform their thinking.

For example, the International Olympic Committee - which had its own corruption scandal over a decade ago at the time of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic bid – is in the process of elaborating how it will implement the Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms endorsed by the Olympic Movement in December 2014. These include several human rights-related recommendations such as fostering greater gender equality, non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation (and revised wording to Fundamental Principle 6 to reflect this), and people with different abilities, as well as on stronger commitments to engage with communities.

Particularly notable is Recommendation 1 that commits the IOC “to include in the host city contract clauses with regard to Fundamental Principle 6 of the Olympic Charter as well as to environmental and labour-related matters.”

The Commonwealth Games Federation’s General Assembly is also due to vote on a strategic reform agenda of its own, Transformation 2022, in Auckland this September. Among other things the new strategy is said to place a stronger emphasis on ties with stakeholders and communities. It builds on the ground-breaking leadership of the Glasgow 2014 Organsing Committee, which was the first MSE organising committee to publish a human rights statement, to reference the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UN Guiding Principles), and to report on its human rights performance.

Formula 1 is taking steps to address human rights concerns as well. In April it published a Statement of Commitment to Respect Human Rights, which commits F1 to undertaking due diligence processes to understand and monitor its human rights impacts, and to engaging in “meaningful consultation with relevant stakeholders”. F1’s new policy follows an initial assessment by the UK OECD National Contact Point (NCP) in October 2014, which accepted that a complaint brought against Formula One merited further examination. The case alleged that by hosting the 2012-14 Grand Prix in Bahrain, F1 had among other things helped give “rise to new human rights abuses” in the country.

There are reasons for cautious optimism for FIFA as well. Sources close to the organisation suggest that even prior to the most recent events, officials have been pushing ahead with internal reforms that enable FIFA to meet a promise made by Executive Committee Member, Theo Zwanziger, to the European Parliament in 2014 to “give human rights a much higher status” in future World Cup bids.

There is a long road ahead for FIFA but there are reasons for cautious optimism. Photo: AsianFC/Flickr.

There is a long road ahead for FIFA but perhaps we need to give some attention to how we can capitalise on positive momentum where it exists. Much of course will depend on implementation of the reforms outlined above. IHRB’s report Striving for Excellence: Mega-Sporting Events and Human Rights and resources like our MegaSportingEvents.org website have already proposed a number of specific recommendations for sports governing bodies, MSE host governments and organising committees, sponsors and other key players. As things stand, two critical areas need special attention if we are to help build a new era of responsibility in sports events.

First is the need to ensure truly meaningful, and ongoing, engagement with potentially affected stakeholders when it comes to preparing for and staging mega sporting events (MSEs), including communities, workers, and small-family run businesses. For too long the voices of affected groups and human rights defenders have gone unheard when it comes to MSEs. Through the Olympic Agenda 2020 process, the IOC opened its doors to stakeholder input. This and other parallel exercises are important steps, but cannot to be isolated exercises, which once carried out are then shelved for several years. The UN Guiding Principles calls for “meaningful consultation with potentially affected groups and other relevant stakeholders”but also makes the case that human rights situations are dynamic. Human rights impact assessments need to be a regular part of MSE planning and implementation processes. Ongoing stakeholder engagement must be a critical part of the equation going forward as well.

The need for more joined-up thinking and information sharing across sports governing bodies is also essential. The emerging good practice outlined above, and other examples that IHRB has commented upon elsewhere, are too often isolated within an individual event or organisation with little, if any information sharing across the broader sporting family.

Yet as we have seen in Brazil, Russia and the UK, oftentimes MSEs can occur in the same country within a matter of years. A mechanism is urgently needed to bring human rights learning and stakeholder inputs together across both sporting bodies and continents. IHRB is actively pursuing this mission through discussions with our government, sports industry, business and civil society partners.