Democratic Governance in Sports

The ability of sports federations to self-regulate is a profession of faith in the governance of global sports, even as a defense measure against attempts at political appropriation of the virtues of sports ideas, especially by autocratic or totalitarian regimes, as seen, for example, in "Nazification" of the aesthetics of the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, or the use of sport as a piece of propaganda during the Cold War, in the second half of the 20th century.

However, the possible hypocrisy of the discourse of an alleged purity of ideals defended by sporting autonomy has been exposed by successive episodes of abuse and corruption by sector leaders, at the most diverse levels, generating government reactions in order to issue norms that allow a greater degree of state intervention in sport.

Given this situation, the work proposes governance standards that can preserve sports self-regulation, especially from the point of view of democratization of national and international federations and in light of the regulatory innovations issued by FIFA and the International Olympic Committee, in reaction to the episodes that undermine the credibility of global sports governance.