News: September 2018

Good sport governance practices include addressing critical challenges such as conflicts of interest, financial transparency and separation of roles and responsibilities between operational and political level management

Michael Pedersen spoke at the first Regional Summit of Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), hosted by Kosovo National Olympic Committee, in Pristina, Kosovo on 5 September 2018. The Summit brought together approx. 100 sport leaders from the Balkan region. Other speakers included the presidents of national Olympic committees in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro (Viron Bezhani, Besim Hasani, Vasil Tupurkovski and Dusan Simonovic) as well as Kosovo government ministers for sport and finance (Kujtim Gashi and Bedri Hamza).

In the context of the session titled “Best Practices Related to Good Governance in Sport”, Michael Pedersen shared perspectives on the why, what and how of good governance in sport. He emphasized that a sound platform of good governance is of strategic importance and urgency to any sport organization, inasmuch as it builds trust, growth and performance. Michael subsequently defined the scope of sport governance along the lines of internal, athletic and event governance dimensions, i.e. dimensions to ensure political and operational integrity of a sport organization, a levelled playing field for athletes and integrity in and around sport events. Based on his work to support sport leaders and sport organizations at all levels of sport and across sports, countries and regions, he then went on to define evolving good sport governance practices along the lines of statutes, policies and procedures that are a) risk and stakeholder based and b) comprehensive, adequate and effective in nature. On this basis, Michael specifically highlighted that sport organizations, which showcase evolving good sport governance practices, address critical governance challenges such as conflicts of interest, financial transparency and separation of roles and responsibilities between operational and political level management.

Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA) is an independent and multi-stakeholder based international organization with a focus on governance, illegal betting, financial integrity and protection of children and youth in sport. Founding members and supporters include stakeholders such as national, regional and international sport organisations as well as governments, inter-governmental bodies, sponsors, media broadcasters, financial institutions, NGOs, academia and professional services/audit firms. SIGA offers universal standards and a comprehensive implementation framework, which takes into account that sport organisations are very different in terms of size, resources and specific challenges.

Kosovo National Olympic Committee is responsible for Kosovo's participation at the Olympic Games. The Committee supports and oversees national sport organizations in Kosovo. It was established in 1992 and became a full member of the International Olympic Committee in 2014.

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