Analysis: In 2013, then-FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke stated that “less democracy is sometimes better for organising a World Cup”. He reasoned that a “strong head of state” reduces organisational costs. Economist Matthias Fett looks at the numbers and tests this hypothesis.

Play the Game calls upon potential partners to declare their interest in hosting Play the Game 2021, the 12th world communication conference on sport and society.

The governance structures in national sports organisations in 13 different countries will come under close scrutiny in the coming year as Play the Game initiates the third round of the National Sports Governance Observer project with a number of new partners.

To Global Athlete Director General Rob Koehler, sports democracy is ‘a democracy limited for the few’ that needs to change. The former WADA Deputy Director General heads up an international athlete-led movement that was established earlier this year in order to promote athletes’ rights all over the world.

The upcoming 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo has raised questions about national identity and belonging among the Japanese population. Especially tennis player Naomi Osaka, who is daughter of a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, has been subject to some surviving racism in Japan, Asger Røjle Christensen reports from the Japanese capital.

The President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, calls for tougher sanctions against athletes’ entourage in his speech at the World Anti-Doping Agency’s fifth World Conference on Doping in Sport in Katowice, Poland.

On the final day of Play the Game 2019, participants heard about the Canadian struggle for safe sport and how attempts to establish an independent Pan-Canadian body to oversee safe sport in the country – built on elements and principles known from the establishment of the national anti-doping agency – have stalled due to political hesitation and push back from national sports organisations. Yet the Canadian experience may still serve as an inspiration for other countries.

In the final session of Play the Game 2019, a powerful panel of experts warned that far greater efforts are needed to combat match-fixing.