Straight Line
Thoughts on managing sports bodies
Recently, there have been laudable efforts to streamline the administration of the national level sports bodies. Sports enthusiasts are witnessing commendable ventures to financially strengthen the different sports federations. There is considerable interest in creating a lively atmosphere. This writer, in view of his past experience as the president of the Bangladesh Volleyball Federation and also as secretary, Ministry of Youth and Sports, considers it pertinent to put forward some suggestions for improving the performance of our sports bodies.
From the earliest years of the revival of competitive sport as a means of improving individual social conditions, most sports clubs, leagues, unions, associations, and national federations (NFs) operated exclusively under the impulse of two major tendencies: the socialist approach under populist concepts on the one hand, and the approach focusing on individual rights and support to private organisations on the other.
The former pursued traditional concepts such as sport for all, sport as a social service, and sport as an educational vehicle. The latter emphasised freedom of choice and enabled youngsters deprived of social opportunities to attain physical and moral health and avoid antisocial behaviour and criminal tendencies.
In the past, volunteers promoted sports through improvised sports activities. These offered enjoyment, free-time, and community contact to the youth of the day. Later on, clubs, leagues, associations, NFs, and others provided competitors with an opportunity to become local heroes through sport competitions. Simple sports enjoyment, combined with the honour of defending the colours of a group, college, university, or club, would sometimes lead to the pleasure of becoming a recognised community idol.
This is no longer the case, because every sporting event today is shrouded in a new atmosphere, surrounded by a whole set of new relationships, attitudes and behaviours, creating a commercial sport world peculiar to our times.
Times have changed, as have individual attitudes and behaviour. As a result, the social context of sport has undergone a profound change. Today, in addition to honour and public recognition, new rewards await winners: fame, glory, money and social status. By now, every layer of society has been affected by this shift.
Sports organisations at the national and international levels are deserting the battlefields of competitive sport and leaving professional sports activities in the hands of businessmen and promoters.
At the same time, they are being pressured by political, commercial, and domineering attitudes. All this turmoil threatens to destroy current sport structures, sooner or later, and compels NFs either to abandon the sport scene or, in exchange for their subservience, remain as passive bystanders with no significant role.
Maintaining cooperation and understanding in sports will be possible only if sport leaders at the national level are elected from among individuals whose ethical principles make them trustworthy guardians of the moral and legal integrity of sport and of its democratic institutions. This leader must not be driven by personal ambition and plutocratic interests.
Inertia, combined with a lack of organisational structure, the absence of administrative procedures, and the ineptitude of managers, will not only destroy the sport organisation itself but also the sport movement, as we know it today. In the end, it will seriously damage the very roots of the Olympic movement.
Organisation, administration, and management are, today, the most reliable driving forces of sport organisations in any country. Indeed, these three elements must function well together for a sports association, club, league, event organiser, or regional sport organization, to attain the highest level of efficiency and effectively solve problems that arise.
A good organisation arranges a coherent structure of interdependent and interactive units, sections, or divisions into a whole system. In any country, sport activities need a good organisational structure so that athletes, clubs, teams, and others can participate easily in events. Well-prepared units of a sports organisation must all work together toward the achievement of clearly determined goals and objectives.
Administration is the timely allocation of human, material, and financial resources needed to maintain the smooth running of an organization, and implementing its strategic actions. Once a sport organisation's structure is clearly defined, an efficient administration to support and follow up the various actions of the units, as well as to connect with those practicing the sport, must be foreseen.
Management creates and maintains a coherent system of decision-making procedures and motivates people to identify themselves with, and strive toward, the accomplishment of an organisation's strategic plan.
This involves an adequate flow of information; the determination of goals and objectives; the selection of activities required to pursue those objectives; and the motivation of members, employees, and volunteers alike to work together toward those goals. An organisation needs to be run by professional and competent managers from its earliest to its ultimate stage of development.
National federations are central to the NOCs (National Olympic Committee), and represent the IF and its sport in their country. When adequately organised, efficiently administered, and professionally managed, NFs are the driving forces of sports in their respective countries. As such, they are able to carry out day-to-day operations, such as the following:
Recruiting athletes and organising groups of teams in clubs or other sport organisations capable of providing training and regular sport activities. Organising and promoting local, regional, national, and international competitions.
Being in charge of the preparation, selection, and entry of athletes for international competitions held under the authority of the respective IFs.
Proposing to their NOC, in the case of regional, continental, and Olympic multi- sport competitions recognised by the IOC, those athletes that it considers to be prepared and eligible to represent their country, on the understanding that the NOC is the only competent body to enter the athletes in such games.
Providing technical assistance for implementing organisational programs to develop grassroots, educational, or free-time sports.
Facilitating the formation of leagues or events circuits (professional, semi-pro, national, regional, or local), that are run by affiliated organisations, under their umbrella .
It is high time for our apex sports organisation to prepare a strategic plan as proposed, and embark upon a pragmatic program of action. Hope lies in the fact that the Chief of Staff, Bangladesh Army has taken a meaningful interest in the development of sports. His commitment should encourage others to come forward and contribute their mite.
Muhammad Nurul Huda is a columnist for The Daily Star.
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