Action for Good Governance in International Sports Organisations

In October 2011, the European Commission's Sport Unit awarded Play the Game/Danish Institute for Sports Studies a grant of 198,000 Euros to find answers to the burning question of how international sports organisations can improve their governance and strengthen their credibility.

Play the Game teamed up with academic experts from KU Leuven, the University of Utrecht, IDHEAP Lausanne, Loughborough University, University of Ljubljana, the German Sport University Cologne, and the European Journalism Centre to prepare a global index for good governance in sport under the auspices of the project ‘Action for Good Governance in International Sports Organisations’ (AGGIS).

In the first half of 2012, project partners carried out a thorough empirical analysis of the state of governance in a wide range of sports organisations whilst senior academic researchers in the group started laying out a solid theoretical foundation for future efforts.

From the autumn of 2012, the focus was on building a measuring tool that could be used by sports organisations themselves or by their stakeholders to discuss the governance standards of the organisation in question.

The AGGIS project was concluded in the first half of 2013 and findings – including a first version of the Sports Governance Observer Tool – were presented at a seminar in Brussels in April 2013.

The AGGIS project was introduced in a leaflet and the results from the project were published in the final report. 

In the short leaflet, you can find a quick introduction to concepts developed in the AGGIS project as well as the first version of a tool to measure the state of governance in international sports organisations.

Download the leaflet

The final report from the AGGIS project includes: 

• a test survey on the current status of sports governance
• scientific articles by project partners explaining the fundamental dimensions of good governance in sport

Download the final report

As part of its research, the AGGIS group also produced a number of documents and reports about governance principles in sport.

See the documents and reports produced by the AGGIS group 

To implement the AGGIS project, Play the Game and The Danish Institute for Sports Studies partnered with a group of academics with high levels of expertise in the fields of global governance in general, international sports governance, professional sports systems, legislation, media relations and public communication on sports politics.

• Hans Bruyninckx, Professor of Political Science and Director HIVA - Research Institute for Work and Society, University of Leuven, Belgium
• Jean-Loup Chappelet, Professor and Director, IDHEAP (Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration), Lausanne, Switzerland
• Frank van Eekeren, Senior Consultant, Utrecht University, Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance, School of Governance (USG), The Netherlands
• Arnout Geeraert, PhD Candidate, HIVA - Research Institute for Work and Society, University of Leuven, Belgium
• Michael Groll, Researcher, Institute of European Sport Development and Leisure Studies at German Sport University Cologne, Germany
• Barrie Houlihan, Professor, Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy, School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Loughborough, UK
• Biba Klomp, Project Manager, European Journalism Centre, Maastricht, The Netherlands
• Simona Kustec Lipicer, Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Jürgen Mittag, Professor, Head of the Institute of European Sport Development and Leisure Studies at German Sport University Cologne, Germany
• Michael Mrkonjic, PhD Candidate, IDHEAP (Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration), Lausanne, Switzerland
• Jeroen Scheerder, Associate Professor, Research Unit of Social Kinesiology & Sport Management, University of Leuven, Belgium