Comparative Sport Development

This section starts giving an overview about why governments implement sport policies and finance sport. Thereafter, details about the comparative approach as well as the structure of the different book chapters – which is similar for all chapters – are provided highlighting the different sections and raising arguments for including particular elements. Finally, a summary of the countries presented in this book is given.

Belgium is a federal state whose political power and institutions are separated into three levels. As a part of the cultural domain, governmental competences with regard to sport, such as the organization of sport, sport policy planning, and the subsidizing of sport in general and sport federations in particular, are the exclusive responsibility of the three communities (i.e., the Flemish Community, the French Community, and the German-speaking Community). First, the organization of sport in Belgium is described by making using of the so-called Church Model of Sport. The sport system in Belgium is strongly influenced by the federal structure of the Belgian state. Second, the financing of sport is studied. In line with the community competences with regard to sport, the public financing of sport is the responsibility of the communities and also of the provinces and municipalities. Because of the availability of data (i.e., public funding, expenditures of households, and voluntary engagement), the focus is on the financing of sport in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium. Third, the sport policy system is discussed. Since each community in Belgium has its own policy in the field of sports. As sport policy in Flanders is characterized by a strong commitment to the Sport for All ideology, this policy system is shortly described. Fourth, data with regard to sport participation is provided. Due to the divided sport policy system in Belgium, no national research tradition into active sport participation exists. Hence, data for Flanders, available from 1969 onwards, are presented.

The sports history of Cyprus dates back many centuries. Inscriptions found in various archaeological sites, both on the island and in Greece, provide evidence for the Cypriots’ love for sports. In its effort to promote sports, in 1969 the Government of Cyprus established the Cyprus Sport Organization following the passage of special legislation known as the “Cyprus Sport Organization Law of 1969.” The Cyprus Sport Organization has developed extensive sports infrastructure over the years in its effort to promote sport in Cyprus. Based on the provisions of the law, the government provides funding for both competitive and recreational sport (Sport for All), and the sport system in Cyprus has thus developed based on state funding and voluntary support for the running and administration of the National Sports Federations and the National Olympic Committee.

Sport organization in Estonia needs to be seen in light of certain cultural and political changes that started at the end of 1980s and the beginning of 1990s when the independence of Estonia was restored. Beginning with the Estonian Sports Congress II held in 1989, the approach characteristic to European countries has primarily been followed in regard to building the Estonian sport system. There is balanced cooperation between the state and the sports organizations and a broad, well-organized, and competent network of sports organizations has developed. State and local government bodies acknowledge the importance of the social, health-enhancing, and economic role of sport in the society. Sports organizations are independent of the state in their decision making, and they have the right to financial or material support in order to realize their objectives. Sport financing in Estonia is basically provided by three sectors: the public sector, the voluntary sector, and the private sector. Estonian athletes have been successful at the international level, but the Estonian sports system as a whole still has room for improvement. Only 36 % of adults and about a half of schoolchildren are regularly physically active, i.e., doing physical exercise for at least 30 min at least twice per week.

This chapter deals with the structure, organization, policy, and participation of sport in Finland. It aims to highlight how sport and physical culture in Finland are historically based on the civil society and volunteer activities. Public sector has also been an important actor in the physical culture in Finland. Importance of physical education teacher education and the equal sport participation possibilities of the citizens provide examples in which ways physical culture is seen as a core element of the welfare agenda of the society. On the other hand, the role of private and professional sport sector has been relatively marginal when compared internationally, although the amount of profit-making sport providers has increased in the 2000s. All in all, sport and physical culture are socially and culturally important in the Finnish society. However, economic tendencies and value changes of the contemporary society set challenges to the voluntary and equally based physical culture in Finland.

The French state has exerted significant influence on its sports system since the 1930s. The Ministry of Sport is the dominant actor in the field of sport politics. Both towards the nongovernmental institutions on the national level and towards the governmental bodies on the regional level, the Ministry of Sport executes a substantial influence. The main instruments are a distinct legislation for sport and an extensive financial support of sport. With the Code du Sport in 2006, the French government created a comprehensive law regulating the interaction of all relevant actors in sport. In 2011, the French state – national state and the territorial authorities – spent 15.13 billion euros on sport. Following current studies two-thirds of the French population participates in physical activities and about 27 % is organized within a sport club or association.

The organization of sport in Germany is based on the principles of the autonomy of sport, subsidiarity, and cooperation. These principles, like the federal structure of the state and administration, are the result of a historical process starting after World War II. The core of the sport structure in Germany is the self-administration of the club system. The clubs are organized both at the level of specific disciplines (into governing bodies) and at the level of multiple sports (into sports confederations). Integration at all levels is via voluntary membership, in other words from the bottom-up. In the public administration of sport, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the 16 federal states have joint responsibility. The German government, the federal states, and local municipalities support the high-performance sport but also sport for all. The most practiced sports are cycling, swimming, and running, which are associated with non-organized sports, while sports such as soccer, gymnastics, or volleyball are associated with participation in a nonprofit sport club, and sports such as dancing, yoga, and back fitness are most often practiced using a commercial sport provider.

The governance and the funding of sport have been at the centre of debate and have remained an open issue in Hungary since the political and economic changes at the beginning of 1989–1990. In 2010, however, sport was declared to be one of the strategic branches of Hungarian society and economy, which brought a series of political actions resulting in several fundamental changes. The structure, the funding system and also the legal regulations were modified; and an unprecedented amount of funding was put into sport. Whether the changes would finally bring the long-awaited democratisation of sports and the societal integration into sports in Hungary and would initiate a process in which sport participation rates would increase remains the question of the implementation plans of the new legal and funding environment and shall be answered, but also measured, in due time.

Sport in Ireland is organized hierarchically with top-down (or central) policy development, dissemination, and oversight. As the majority of sports in Ireland are played on an amateur basis (rugby union and golf being exceptions), sport is organized around a complex federated model of not-for-profit organizations to deliver government sports policy objectives. The implementation of sport policy is the responsibility of each Sport National Governing Bodies (NGBs), which is assisted in its efforts by the Irish Sports Council (ISC) and other state agencies and organizations. The main mechanism used by the Irish government to shape sport policy direction and implementation is funding in sport, with regular reviews undertaken to ascertain the outcomes and value from government investment in sport.

While the focus of this chapter is the Republic of Ireland, it is important to note that most Irish Sports NGBs operate on an All-Ireland basis. The sporting infrastructure in Ireland has improved over the past 10 years; however, further enhancements are needed if government targets in elite sport and healthy pursuits are to be attained. Drawing on secondary source materials, evidence points to increased sports participation among Irish people; greater engagement in some sports activities by way of volunteering and through other initiatives such as Women in Sport and Local Sports Partnerships (LSPs).

This chapter sheds light on the characteristics of the Dutch sport system, sport policy, and sport participation. In addition attention is paid to facilities use for sport participation and the role of sport facilities in enhancing sport participation. For this purpose an overview is given of recent policy documents related to sport, and analyses are conducted on national sport participation surveys that include the abovementioned topics.

In this chapter we conclude that in the Netherlands the sport clubs are the most important frameworks for organized sport activities. The Netherlands is characterized by a strong sport club system and a good sport infrastructure. This is a result of the investments of the government in facilitating sport and the high degree of sport voluntary work in the Netherlands.

The government considers sport as a mean to achieve objectives set out in other policy fields such as welfare and public health. Most prominent policy target is to increase sport participation to 75 % in 2016. Although, the results indicate that sport participation has been stable for the past 5 years, around 65 %. To raise sport participation rates, additional sport facilities seem to have little effect given the high standard of sport facilities in the Netherlands. Offering new proven effective activities to target groups in cooperation with local partners using existing facilities is a more promising and viable approach to increase sport participation rates in the Netherlands.

The chapter provides the discussion of sport policy and the sport system in Poland. It can be classified as an interventionist, centralized, bureaucratic, and intensely formalized but unstable. Intervention on sport system by state is based on legal regulation – law is the main tool using by state to govern Polish sport.

The current Polish sport system is a combination of traditional and contemporary elements – voluntary activity of nonprofit organizations with centralized state administration management. The system consists of nongovernmental organization mainly financed by the public sources.

At the same time Poles largely prefer to organize sport and recreation sessions on their own. They organize such activity either alone or among their relatives or friends. Polish people relatively rarely take advantage of the offer of sport clubs or private organizers of sport and recreation sessions. Poles most often declare noninstitutional and outdoor (43 %) forms of physical activity. Only 3 % of Poles visit fitness clubs (compared to 11 % of Europeans) and 5 % train at sport clubs.

During the last 20 years, sport participation has increased significantly in Spain. This evolution has been closely associated to the significant increase of the number of sport facilities. In a similar way, during the last decades the economic importance of sport in Spain has also seen a significant increase and now accounts for 2.4 % of gross domestic product with Spanish people spending EUR 595 per capita on sport in 2006.

This chapter describes the Spanish national system where sport policy is developed simultaneously by national, regional, and local authorities. The Spanish High Council for Sport (CSD) implements the national sport policy based on the development of the national sport system and improvement of high performance sport. Regional and local authorities focus their attention on the promotion of sport for all at the regional and local level, respectively.

The financing of sport and the impact of the recent economic crisis on public investment in sport in Spain, which has experienced a significant reduction in the last few years, are also considered. Finally, the evolution of sport participation in Spain is analyzed, with a clear development of new sport activities and a more nonorganized way of participation. The relationship between sport participation and sport infrastructure is also described.

This chapter looks at the structure of sport in England, its financing, and gives a brief history of sport policy. The second half of this chapter looks at how sports participation is measured and provides an overview of the pattern of sport participation and how it has changed over the recent past.

Sport has always played an important societal role in the People’s Republic of China. This chapter will examine Chinese sports systems, structure, and organizations; financing of sport; sports policy; and sports participation in the context of the dramatic transformation of Chinese society in the twenty-first century.

Since Western sports and their concepts were first introduced in Japan in the late nineteenth century, sports had served the Japanese in various ways, and it had been regarded as extraordinary activities mainly for fun, pleasure, and relaxation until recently. However, the gigantic earthquake and tsunami, which hit the Pacific coast of Japan’s Tohoku and Kanto regions on the 11th of March 2011, changed that perception. Sports may have more power and could play more important roles in Japanese society than hitherto.

Including those new roles, this chapter describes and discusses the sport development in Japan from the following points: (1) brief history of sport in Japan, (2) systems and organizational structures of sport in Japan, (3) finance of sport in Japan, (4) sport policies in Japan, and (5) sport participation in Japan.

Based on the information reported in the above sections, the author concludes this chapter with an outlook for a better future of sport in Japan.

This chapter provides an overview of the systems and policies related to sport and its promotion. The major thrust of the chapter is in describing the role of the government in the promotion of sport and its relationship to the nongovernmental enterprises. It is noted that while the government sets lofty goals to encourage both participation and excellence in sport, the budget allocations toward these ends are limited and that even these limited allocations are not properly used. The involvement of business and industrial enterprises in sport is also highlighted.

Sport development in Australia is currently driven by the Commonwealth Government’s commitment to a whole-of-sport approach and creating stronger links between participation and high-performance sport with a particular focus on increasing participation. The National Sport and Active Recreation Policy Framework and The National Institute System Intergovernmental Agreement provide guidance for the alignment of sport development strategies with State and Territory departments of sport and recreation, local government and peak sporting bodies such as national sports organisations. The policies also outline key objectives, such as increasing participation and increased international success. The focal point for the delivery of sports policy is the Australian Sports Commission, which is the primary national sports administration and advisory agency and works with various Commonwealth government departments, State and Territory departments of sport and recreation, national sport organisations, peak sporting bodies, schools and local communities and clubs to deliver both participation and high-performance objectives. The Australian Sports Commission also funds sport at a national level and distributes the majority of its funding through national sport organisations which must meet eligibility criteria to be allocated funds. Other funding for sport is provided through State and Territory departments of sport and recreation that have their own budgets and state sporting organisation grants. While participation rates in Australia have increased from 2001 to 2010, it is unclear if this has been the result sports policy or external circumstances.

Despite its small size and population, New Zealand’s elite athletes perform very well in global competition – particularly when considered alongside countries of similar size and population. This was evident at the London 2012 Olympic Games, a competition in which Kiwis won six gold medals – an astounding achievement for a country of just 4.5 million people. There is a belief in New Zealand that success on the world stage is possible due to the structure of sport within the country. New Zealand’s participant sport infrastructure is well developed, and the popularity of sport amongst Kiwis of all ages is supported by recent data. Sport is primarily club based in New Zealand, but schools play a vital role in the delivery of sport for those below the age of 18. Recent trends in sport participation amongst Maori, Pacific and blossoming Asian populations are likely to change the perception of New Zealand as being a country focused just on rugby union, netball and cricket.

This chapter provides an analysis of sport development, transformation, policy development, participation, and systems development in South Africa. This perspective is provided against the backdrop of exciting developments in Africa where sport and development initiatives have been growing rapidly in popularity. This chapter shows that South Africa’s sport system and structures simultaneously address the divisiveness of its apartheid past and establish a foundation for an inclusive and competitive sport performance framework. In terms of governance and organizational development for sport and development initiatives, the discussion provides an overview of the transformation phases including streamlining seven independent sport institutions into two macro-sport institutions. The National Sport System in South Africa rests on two institutional pillars, namely, government and civil society. Civil Society sport is structured through the nongovernment South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) at national level, nine regional sport confederations, and a range of district and city sport confederations. This chapter also deals with sport at schools, sport participation, participation rates, and top sports. It was found that South African sport policy and the associated legislation are comprehensive in its content and strategic focus although the monitoring and evaluation system to assess performance are still evolving. An analysis of the policy and strategy system of sport and recreation in South Africa shows that although an important basis has been laid in terms of the White Paper, the Act, and the National Sport and Recreation Plan, much still needs to be done to establish a well-synchronized policy, implementation, and performance management system.

This chapter shows how the development of sport in Uganda has been affected by a number of factors such as physical education not being taught in schools, a lack of facilities and equipment, a lack of technical staff in the administration and management of sports, and inadequate funding, to name but a few. Uganda did not have a sports policy until 2004, yet some progress has been made since then. However, despite the carefully considered mission, objectives, and strategies, implementation has been slow and participation in sport is limited. Government funding is inadequate which has forced sports associations to seek corporate funding. This has enabled them to implement various sports programs.

This chapter aims to shed some light onto how the complex sport system in Mexico is structured. Along the following lines, the main stakeholders in Mexico’s sporting life are described together with their responsibilities and their interaction. A short historical summary explains the necessity for organized sports in Mexico. Then an in-depth description of the government branch responsible for national physical activity and sport is presented, followed by a comprehensive diagram of the Mexican sport system. The text also reviews the financing of sports and sport policy in the country. Moreover, the different programs that foster sport participation in the country, from sport for all to high performance, are contrasted against the obesity levels in the population. Finally, rates of the most practiced and most popular sports in the country are described.

Brazil adopted a sports policy in the early days of the Republic. The Ministry of Sports is responsible for the constitution of the national sports policy. Given the current legislation, Law 9615/1998, there are many aspects to sport, sport education, high-performance sport, and commercial sport participation. High-performance sport is promoted through social inclusion campaigns, and sports policy is implemented by the Secretariats. Sport is financed primarily by the lottery and by the Athlete Scholarship program. Informal physical activities in Brazil today include walking and street running. The Atlas of Sport in Brazil identifies the 10 most popular sports today which are soccer, volleyball, table tennis, swimming, futsal, capoeira, skateboarding, surfing, judo, and athletics. Although still controversial and contradictory, some progress has been made in the area of sport development, but the results are not yet satisfactory.

The sport system in the United States, from its organization to national policy to financing, is unique primarily due to a conscious decision by the federal government to effectively stay out of the development of the country’s sport policy. Nonetheless, sports are an important and lucrative part of American culture as evidenced by the enormous popularity of and resources devoted to professional sports leagues and intercollegiate athletics. The training and development of the nation’s elite athletes are left to the discretion of the United States Olympic Committee, a nonprofit private organization with no dedicated federal funding whose priority is the elite, rather than the recreational, athlete. As a result, opportunities for grassroots participation trickle down to state but mostly local, recreational facilities, and sports clubs that are mostly privately funded.

This chapter looks at sport development in Canada in terms of how sport is structured and governed, how it is financed, policies that promote and support sport development, and an overview of participation rates and trends. It concludes with a special focus on the Long-Term Athlete Development model, a framework for sport participation across the lifespan.

The conclusion will highlight and compare the different perspectives on sport systems and structure, financing of sport, sport policies, and sport participation. Main differences will be discussed within each area and an overview about the important results of the comparison of the 23 countries involved will be given. The objective is to reflect on the diversity of approaches taken to sport development, focusing on the different sport systems and how sport is financed, the underlying applications of sport policy, and how it is reflected in sport participation.