Michael Pedersen facilitated a workshop in the context of the European Commission’s flagship event on good governance in sport. The event, which had approx. 200 high-level participants from across national and European sport organizations, governments and other stakeholders of sport, took place in Brussels, Belgium on 15 September 2016.

The workshop was focused on current sport governance challenges. It offered a framework for applying multiple stakeholder perspectives in a highly engaging and interactive process. Workshop participants explored the strategic imperative of good governance in sport, mapped and assessed critical sport governance issues and started exploring evolving good sport governance practices.

There was a general consensus among the workshop participants that it is strategically urgent and important to modernize the way that sport organizations are governed. Participants also widely shared the belief that a sound platform of good governance is the foundation for building trust, growth and performance into the future.

In the workshop, the collective shortlisting of sport governance issues with high likelihood of becoming critical and high impact on trust, growth and performance was as follows (no particular order):

• Accountability
• Transparency
• Democratic decision-making models free of the risk of vote buying
• Stakeholder inclusion in decision-making processes
• Conflicts of interest/independent decision-making
• Athlete safety
• Child protection
• Doping
• Match-fixing
• Development funding integrity
• Fair/equal/transparent sport event bidding processes
• Fair/equal/transparent sport event ticket pricing and distribution
• Fair/equal/transparent selection of sponsors and media broadcasters

Following the flagship event, Yves Le Lostecque, Head of the Sport Policy and Programme Unit of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Education and Culture, made the following statement: “I would like to thank Michael Pedersen for his precious cooperation to the 2016 European Week of Sport Flagship Event. We have particularly appreciated Michael Pedersen’s active contribution to the workshops on Good Governance and the afternoon conference. During the past days we received interesting feedbacks and positive comments from people who took part to the event. It was a success for all of us, and we are definitely grateful for Michael Pedersen’s professional and generous cooperation.”

An official workshop summary is available.

A second workshop in the context of the flagship event focused on future sport governance scenarios. It was facilitated by Kristel Van der Elst, Co-Founder and CEO of The Global Foresight Group.