Bri­an Lewis

With­in re­cent times, if one is to go by world sport me­dia re­ports, there seems to be an aw­ful lot of sword rat­tling for pow­er, au­thor­i­ty and in­flu­ence with­in the cor­ri­dors of pow­er of in­ter­na­tion­al sport.

Sport Ac­cord, the um­brel­la or­gan­i­sa­tion for all Olympic and non-Olympic in­ter­na­tion­al sports fed­er­a­tions as well as or­gan­is­ers of mul­ti-sports games and sport-re­lat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al as­so­ci­a­tions and the As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (ANOC) are two bod­ies that will like to be even more in­flu­en­tial than they are with­in the Olympic move­ment. It's a sit­u­a­tion and a cir­cum­stance that the IOC (In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee) has brought on it­self.

Uni­ty and good gov­er­nance must be re­al and not just rhetoric. The core val­ues of Olymp­ism and sport aren't a sac­ri­fi­cial lamb on the al­tar of ex­pe­di­en­cy and am­bi­tion. The per­cep­tion is that there is a lack of trust in the ca­pac­i­ty of democ­ra­cy to de­liv­er the best op­tions for the sus­tain­able growth of the Olympic move­ment and the Olympic Games. Mixed sig­nals has cre­at­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty for those who rep­re­sent a world view to po­si­tion them­selves as ser­vants and stew­ards of the ma­jor­i­ty.

Where is the pas­sion for the val­ues of sport and Olymp­ism?

In striv­ing to be more pro­fes­sion­al world sport must first strive to be more eth­i­cal. Serv­ing so­ci­ety through sport is faced with the chal­lenge of nav­i­gat­ing the tur­bu­lent wa­ters of self in­ter­est.

Sport politi­cians who promise the world but de­liv­er noth­ing once the elec­tion race is run, need to be re­mind­ed that the wel­fare of sport and the ath­letes ought not to be made a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball. Glob­al sport politi­cians maybe turn­ing the youth away from sport and in the process dam­ag­ing the im­age and po­ten­tial of sport to make a pos­i­tive so­cial dif­fer­ence.

World sport is fac­ing a pe­ri­od of un­cer­tain­ty as sport pol­i­tics and a jock­ey­ing for con­trol of the huge com­mer­cial ben­e­fits that ac­crue from the suc­cess of sport events and the per­for­mances of the ath­letes seems well and tru­ly on.

The mes­sages and the per­cep­tion of the mes­sages are un­clear as self in­ter­est and agen­das hid­den and open take cen­tre stage el­bow­ing out sport and the ath­letes best in­ter­est.

Lit­tle of the dis­course sur­round­ing the jos­tle for pow­er and au­thor­i­ty seem to re­flect the con­cerns of the de­vel­op­ing world and the le­gion of am­a­teurs and vol­un­teers and un­der re­sourced stake­hold­ers who labour tire­less­ly and res­olute­ly in the vine­yard of world sport. Is it that some­where along the line the soul of sport has been lost?

The in­ter­na­tion­al fed­er­a­tions and um­brel­la or­gan­i­sa­tions, be they Sport Ac­cord, ANOC etc, need to re­ex­am­ine their mo­tives. Is what is hap­pen­ing hold­ing true to the core val­ues, mis­sion and vi­sion that are time­less? Are the glob­al sport pow­er bro­kers true to the ideals, spir­it and val­ues of sport and Olymp­ism?

Soon­er rather than lat­er the chasm be­tween am­a­teur/vol­un­teer and pro­fes­sion­al sport will be­come im­pos­si­ble to in­te­grate. Grass­roots sport is the nurs­ery for pro­fes­sion­al and elite sport. To con­tin­ue to widen the gap is not on­ly short­sight­ed but is an­ti-sport.

Sport as we have come to know, love, play and sup­port, is in grave dan­ger. World sport lead­ers and those as­pir­ing to lead, be it the IOC, Sport Ac­cord and oth­er pow­er­ful glob­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions, must rep­re­sent the core val­ues of sport.

Peo­ple in­volved in sport around the world need the as­sur­ance that their vol­un­teer­ing and ser­vice will not be tak­en for grant­ed, abused and be in vain. The chal­lenges fac­ing world sport are in many cas­es com­plex. But they aren't in­sur­mount­able.

The IOC, Sport Ac­cord and ANOC wield sig­nif­i­cant in­flu­ence over Olympic sport. The de­ci­sions those bod­ies make have sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tions for this and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

The pri­or­i­ty is the best in­ter­est of world sport, the youth of the world who par­tic­i­pate and the ath­letes. If sport is to make a so­cial and eco­nom­ic con­tri­bu­tion around the world, there can be no oth­er con­sid­er­a­tion.

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