Introduction: Olympic Day is a good day to focus on the fundamentals of sport

I am delighted to be here on Olympic Day to talk to you about the role of governance in modern day sport and how international sports federations need to have strong foundations to be able to meet the changing needs of sport and, more importantly the changing needs of sports fans.

Olympic Day began in 1948 as a way to promote sport participation across the globe. Today it has become as much about extolling the values of sport as it is about participating in sport. And this reflects the changing role sport plays in society today. Sport is becoming a central pillar in society: tackling health, bringing people together and teaching important values, it is needed more than ever today.

If it is to continue playing this role, sport must also be beyond reproach, remain relevant, and be trusted.

There is a quote that particularly resonates with me. It was part of Sebastian Coe’s speech at the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. He said: “There is a truth to sport. A purity, a drama, an intensity—a spirit that makes it irresistible to take part in, and irresistible to watch” (Sebastian Coe 2012).

FILM: Our fans and future stars

So let me start with this short film: All that is good in sport. This is my sport—athletics—but it could be most sports today. It is the inspiration that drives young people, future fans and future stars.

You will notice that there is no television in this film. The way young people enjoy, experience and engage with sport has changed. Technology, time (or lack of it), and the transient nature of trends is driving this change.

Staying relevant in this changing landscape is critical, but can only be achieved if there is a strong and solid platform of trust.

So let me talk to you about building this platform of trust.

Message 1: Where you start is important

When you are on a journey of reform or change, it is easy to start from where you have got to or start where you want your journey to end.

But if you do this, you fail to explain the most important part of any reform or change programme: why it is necessary. So I would like to start with WHY? Only then can we understand the journey the IAAF is on, and the journey many other sports are beginning or need to begin.

So, starting from the beginning...

Message 2: Why reform?

The IAAF has had to deal with a number of high-profile issues: doping cover-ups and alleged corruption at the highest level of the organisation being the top two. These are two different things which often get lumped together under a doping scandal or doping corruption scandal. I am not here to re-label anything, but rather to explain why the reforms were necessary. The IAAF has a strong antidoping ethos and a good team that has been undermined by a small group of people who should have led them, not let them down. Corruption is an ongoing investigation.

What these two things have in common, other than allegedly involving the same people and, of course, relating to the same organisation and the same sport, is that the leadership was able to influence the system completely unchecked. When staff and council members asked questions about progress or asked for updates on activities, they were powerless to check the information they were being given. The culture was to believe and not to question.

There is a saying that you should never let a good crisis go to waste. Well, Athletics was a sport in crisis—perhaps it still is, though significant progress has been made—so it needed to change. The list of the IAAF’s shortcomings has been aired around the world by the media, fans, athletes, even all our friends.

But to remind you, the critical shortcomings highlighted were:

• No checks on the President’s powers

• Risk of political inference in operations

• Lack of clarity in governance roles & responsibilities

• No voice for athletes at the top level

• Lack of accountability and transparency

As we discussed many times during the nine-month reform process, the walls were too high and the power was in the hands of too few people. That is why the IAAF had to change.

Message 3: When to reform

Reforming your organisation in the eye of the storm is far from ideal timing: you need time to discuss and debate change. You must know and understand what your membership, your stars and your fans believe in, and where change may be hardest. That does not mean you do not change the hard things; it just means you have to review your approach.

The good thing about changing in the eye of the storm is that there is a sense of urgency that keeps everyone focused. But it also means you are reforming in the most public way and under enormous scrutiny from commentators and observers who may not have the long-term interests of your sport at heart.

It is on these occasions that you have to go back to the “why?”. And be sure your ongoing debates and processes capture the real reasons for reform, not knee-jerk reactions to the situation you find yourself in.

In the case of the IAAF, we had a six-step plan, real advocates, and a team that worked round the clock to seek out best practices, write and rewrite our constitution, communicate, lobby and debate, as well as a membership that fundamentally embraced reform.

Our six steps were:

• We developed a process to debate and discuss

• We set a 9-month timeline (tight but necessarily so)

• We set the initial scope and guiding principles (representatives from all areas came together to discuss and debate the scope, core pillars and guiding

principles of our reform in Amsterdam)

• We went to all six areas and spent time explaining, discussing and, in some cases, changing and amending the reforms. We talked with sport insiders and outsiders at these sessions, as it is as important that the media, the public and the fans understand what we are debating

• We held a special congress to take the decision. This was not business as usual, and it was important that everyone inside and outside our sport understood the importance and relevance of these reforms

• We maintained ongoing consultation, feedback and input. We held our convention and our congress in early August, ahead of the World Championships in London. We needed the membership to continue to discuss change and reform.

Message 4: Create a solid foundation

The brief which Sebastian Coe gave the organisation was this: we needed an organisation that would function effectively with all the checks, balances and devolved decision-making required to ensure that these issues would never have to be dealt with again on our—or anybody else’s—watch.

We therefore started with four key areas of reform and change:

• The organization

• Financial and operational systems

• The Integrity Unit

• Ethical compliance

I see this as the house with four connecting walls, all of which support each other. Underpinning these walls—the foundations if you like—is the governance reforms that led to the constitutional changes approved at the IAAF congress last December.

Without strong foundations, the house the IAAF is building would face a range of issues ranging from rising damp to subsiding walls (OK enough with housing analogies – I hope you all understand).

No matter how urgent and desirable it is to have an integrity unit or strong ethical compliance—both of which are critical end points—this cannot be achieved without solid air- and water-tight foundations. It simply cannot be done. So the reforms needed to start with the constitution, not the Integrity Unit.

The reform objectives we set were:

• Wider participation in the decision-making process, including athletes and broadening the geographical and gender representation1

• Governance being separate from management

• The right people with the right skills at all levels of the sport

• Efficient and effective decision-making

• Independent controls & monitoring – the right checks and balances

• Ethical behaviour and integrity

• Transparency and accountability

This was our starting point: the elements of the Governance reform. This should be everyone’s starting point, as governance is the bedrock of any reforms.

Message 5: Chart and celebrate successes

You will be pleased to note that I am not going to go through every detailed change. However, I do want to connect some of the big reforms that were approved in December.

Clear roles, responsibilities, structures and processes with clear reporting lines for all layers of decision-making whether they are led by volunteers or paid staff. On the field of play, at head office, in regional and area associations.

Mixing elected and appointed officials (within or outside the sport) so you have the right people around the table, with the right skills, asking the right questions, and being accountable.

So many sports are influenced by Commissions that are outdated, or without a real purpose or ambit, or seen as rites of passage or grace and favour groups. The nature, number and scope of Commissions should be reviewed so they are aligned with an organisation’s strategy and are actually accountable for something. We are doing just that.

Self-improvement and equality reflecting not only the countries the sport represents but parity within the sport at the elite and grassroots level. This is not just desirable but essential. It is vital that you keep looking at your structures to make sure they mirror the world we all live in.

Integrity and eligibility checks must be undertaken across the board by strong and independent Vetting Panels. This feeds into Integrity Codes of Conduct and Codes of Ethics which make it clear how we expect our people to behave and how we deal with them when they do not.

Only then can we—and should you—look at establishing independent Integrity Units to manage doping and integrity matters. For the IAAF, the institution of the Athletics Integrity Unit means assuming responsibility for anti-doping testing and investigations for all international-level athletes and their support personnel. It also includes a new independent tribunal to determine breaches of the Integrity Code of Conduct by international-level athletes and their support personnel, with a right of appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

In addition, a new and independent Disciplinary Tribunal will be established to hear and rule on all breaches under the Integrity Code of Conduct, so there is “One Code—One Tribunal”. There ensures the clarity and transparency of the process.

Message 6: Create a constantly challenging culture. Never stop evolving

To be the best we can be, we all need to challenge convention constantly. To challenge convention, we need to be clear on what it is, so we need transparency,audits, a roadmap and, of course, independent verification of how we are doing.

The IAAF now has a re-written constitution which was voted in with overwhelming support; a constitution in which the fundamentals of the sport, its structures, processes, roles and responsibilities are embedded. We don’t expect it to sit on the book shelf indefinitely; rather, we expect it to evolve and change, and we will find ways to encourage that to happen.

The IAAF has also put a vetting panel in place.

And we are taking steps with regard to gender equality and representation, too.

We launched the Athletics Integrity Unit in April with the Chairman and Board. Earlier this month, Brett Clothier was named head of the AIU. This appointment was essentially the final brick in the robust wall of ethical defences we have built around our sport. These defences are now up and running, and a tremendous amount of work is already being dedicated to educating athletes, the front and centre of the AIU’s communication effort.

We continue to lead the way in anti-doping and will work tirelessly to bring cheats to justice and drive education. There is still a long way to go. No one is kidding themselves that they have done anything other than take the first steps on a journey of reform. But the journey has started, and our sport has a driven leadership that is passionate about seeing reform take root, establish itself and grow. If the Governance reform work is the framework required for strong foundations, to set out expectations and put in place the powers of compliance, the AIU is the framework that will set the values, ethics and morals we expect everyone in the sport—athletes, administrators and advocates alike—to compete, live and work by.

We will continue to debate and discuss these reforms ahead of the World Championships. Not just the decisions we have made, but the decisions we need to keep making to ensure our sport has the firm foundations needed to support the innovations and changes we need to make to stay relevant.

Conclusion: Go back to the beginning: reform is about relevance, trust and leadership

All sport, not just the IAAF, needs to ensure that everything that is important to them and their sport is properly enshrined in their constitution. This will ensure that those who follow are clear about how the sport should be run, and inherit a clear set of guidelines they can develop and evolve in line with the world they live in.

Only then can they turn to the future.

Relevance is not just about looking at ourselves and what we do. Of course, this is important, but we need to look at the world around us. We talk semi- knowledgeably about Millennials and the younger generation, but do we really know what they mean for our businesses and our sport?

It is not just about the selection on offer and the choices young people make. It is more than that. It is about behaviour. The world of young athletes and young fans is a vastly different place from the world I grew up in.

The speed at which good and bad can be shared is mind-boggling, which means the difference between promoting a sponsor’s product and blowing a sponsorship deal is getting to be as close as first and second place in the 100m final. How does that affect young people’s behaviour? Does it make them more or less cautious? More or less trusting? More or less confident?

It is behaviour we need to focus on if we want to continue to attract and engage young people in sport.

And of course we need to rebuild trust. We are doing that, but it is a long journey back.

We have made 200 changes to our constitution and set in motion a chain of reforms that should never allow our sport to return to the “bad old days” (which in some cases we are still working our way through).

Underlying everything I have talked about today is integrity. It is about making promises and keeping them. It is about how we want people in the sport to behave and act. Raising the standard of conduct across the sport and being clear about what that standard is. We all need to talk about our failings in this area, and we need to talk about what we are doing to fix it. We need ongoing debates, discussions and transparency so all athletes and fans and anyone else can look in and satisfy themselves that everything is going according to plan.

As I said at the beginning. the journey is as important as the destination. As current and future leaders of sport, this is something we all need to take on board. We need to lead by example, not by rhetoric. We will be held to our promises, and we will have less time to implement and less authority to do it “our way” rather than the “shared way”. It is time for sport to lead again, but first we need to get our houses in order so we are all strong enough for the journey ahead.

‍

GERS Olivier,"The Role of Governance in keeping sport relevant", in:K. Georgiadis(ed.), Ethics,Education and Governance in the Olympic Movement, 57thInternational Session for Young Participants (Ancient Olympia,17/6-1/7/2017),International Olympic Academy, Athens, 2018, pp.119-126.

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍