Farrer & Co Women in Sport - Report - Page 23
Focus of governance
You only need to look at recent
doping scandals to see how an issue
of governance can lead the public to
lose faith in the integrity of a sport
and its participants.
Elsewhere, corruption allegations
against FIFA executives placed the
body’s many governance problems in
the spotlight, and what emerged has
done real further damage to the
credibility of the world governing body.
A key governance issue in sport is
safeguarding. This is not a concern that
is unique to sport, but it is fundamental
to a sector that engages children and
young people playing and training in
a wide variety of contexts and settings.
Commercial partners and sponsors
now routinely ask about safeguarding
measures as part of their due diligence
before forming a relationship with
a sports organisation.
Data security is another very
serious risk consideration in sport. The
requirements of the GDPR need close
attention, particularly in a sector where
membership and participant databases
can be vast. The information collected
must be handled with care to avoid
incurring legal, financial and
reputational penalties.
At the forefront of governance issues
grounded in gender are the gender pay
gap and the #MeToo movement, which
are quite rightly hitting the headlines.
Any organisation that cannot
demonstrate a genuine commitment
to gender equality, from the top down,
is opening itself up to challenge and
criticism, not to mention a headlinegrabbing crisis.
Connecting all of the above is the fact
that, more than ever, poor governance
is a major reputational risk. Perhaps as
recently as 10 years ago you could have
argued that the media and the public
were just not interested in matters of
governance, instead preferring to focus
on individual stars or medal tallies.
Today, a governance scandal (be that
connected to gender equality, doping,
safeguarding, data or any other area)
can and will hit the back – or even the
front – pages.
Making the case for gender diversity
Gender diversity and good governance
go hand in hand. Increasing the
number of women on boards is by no
means a guarantee of a well-governed
organisation, but it is one of the
fundamental building blocks.
A key point to emphasise is that a
balanced board will be better at seeing
both the risks and the opportunities
that face an organisation. It is proven
that a more diverse board equates to
better performance.
Gender is of course only one
part of the diversity equation, but
women make up more than 50%
of the population. As such, a balance
of men and women on a board is
a very good place to start and will
automatically increase the likelihood
of an organisation benefitting from a
genuine cross-section of knowledge
and experience.
In the sports sector, standing in
the way of a balanced board can be
a belief that all members of a board
should have some background in
or experience of the sport itself.
Gender diversity and good governance
go hand in hand… a balanced board will
be better at seeing both the risks and the
opportunities that face an organisation.
Tom Bruce
Partner, Farrer & Co
Farrer & Co
Poor governance is a
major reputational risk.
Today, a governance
scandal… can and will hit
the back – or even the
front – pages.
Emily Jamieson
Associate, Farrer & Co
That is very limiting, especially for
certain sports that may not currently
have particularly diverse participation
(even if they are working towards
that goal). To secure real diversity,
an organisation cannot afford to so
severely limit its pool of candidates.
A focus on governance is not just
about achieving change at the top.
A properly appointed, balanced board
can implement a top-down process of
improvement and diversification within
the organisation and the sport. The
members of a genuinely diverse board
will contribute different perspectives
and varying experiences and ideas,
whether those relate to grass roots
participation, marketing and advertising,
or the way competitions are run.
Sports organisations sometimes
don’t like to consider themselves “an
operating business”; we all know that
sport is so much more than balancing
the books. Ultimately, though, any
organisation, for profit or not, needs
to be run prudently and professionally.
As stated above, it is proven that without
diversity at the top levels of decisionmaking processes, an organisation will
be less effective. Get diversity right, and
success is more likely to follow, reflected
in representation on the back pages,
participation, the medal table and the
playing field.
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