Around the last thirty years, the field of Sports for Development (SFD), the intentional use of sport to achieve social development objectives, has exploited nationally and internationally. The sport development potential is recognized directly within the 2030 Agenda For sustainable development, and a network of media, research and academic institutions has been built more and more to Support the field.
In essence, SFD is encouraged by the belief that the popular, social and interactive nature of sport can be used to unite people, promote skills development and address social challenges. That means that programs or focus on providing Mixed group sports activities and experimental learning To promote social relationships, increase life skills and greater awareness of social problems. As with other civil society actors, these programs are funded by a constellation of organizations, including governments, foundations and corporations.
Almost since its inception, SFD approaches and structure have a bone subject to intense criticism. On the one hand, many have expressed Conn to how Nature centered on the individual Or interventions limit the broader social impact or SFD programming. On the other hand, numerous scholars They have highlighted how the sector reproduces social inequalities by reinforcing characteristic values for neoliberalism or colonialism.
But these defects are not just an inherent SFD byproduct. On the other hand, as an argument in a recently Academic paperThese trends have a leg caused “by an elite capture process, Weby Elites works to co -opt and disassemble SFD as a social movement that can represent a risk for your interest.”
With elite capture, I follow the concept proposed by Olúfẹmi O. TáíwòWhere the few direct resources that could serve the many towards their narrower objectives. To achieve this, elite institutions establish, enforce and legitimize the standards that reinforce their dominant position and counteract any significant systemic change. Through the standards imposed in the field, elites ensure that interventions remain short -term and individual -centered issues that do not actively challenge the dominant power structures.
The elites begin by establishing standards for the field. They play an important role in the formulation of SFD policies internationally, being the International Olympic Committee (IOC) a key example. The influence of the IOC within the United Nations helps consolidate its vision of the autonomy of sport, Olympic values and development in critical policy documents. These standards are reproduced even more through the numerous quality criteria and prizes that populate SFD. For example, the Beyond Sport AwardsThey have the main professional sports leagues in North America, place the work of local SFD NGOs in the same position as the initiatives of the professional leagues. In this world, the National Hockey League, a white, exclusive and conservative historical league is praised for its social values and climatic initiatives together with smaller activities promoted by volunteers in the global south. In more general terms, these awards serve to exclude any activist or systemic vision of SFD when clearly delineating what fipios of SFD activities are considered ‘awards
Established standards apply even more by the ability of elite organizations to assign significant funds towards programs. The IOC has become an important financier, as well as other international sports federations and corporations such as FIFA, UEFA, Adidas and more. These short -term support funds, administration, heavy interventions of individual level. Funds can only be used for predefined activities, and the success of any intervention must be through the measurement of predefined indicators. This guarantees that SFD organizations remain focused on the delivery of short -term programs and immediate individual results instead of working on larger systemic problems.
Finally, these standards are legitimized by the important funds that the elites provide to evaluation and research in the field. Thought about the quality and the amount of evidence in SFD has long been raised, the sector remains full of reports, press releases and academic articles that adopt the effectiveness of interventions. This allows elites to illustrate that their financed programs ‘work’ and legitimize even more the standards that establish and impose in the field, while diverting any conversation about broader systemic changes.
The limitations described here, and its negative impact will surely be a less partial family for professionals in the field. The crucial question then becomes, how do we escape the capture? This is not an easy question. The seeds of a solution already exist within the most critical approaches they propose within the field, including interventionist or structural approaches, as well as within aboriginal worldviews or critical pedagogy. However, Ash Táíwò Notes, we must also build new financing and organization structures to support more critical interventions. That means that we must go beyond simply focusing on our activities in the field and, instead, consider how we want to structure the field as a whole.
Professor (FH) Sports Management and Sports Sociology
Kufstein Applied University
Blog posts represent the author’s opinions and not those of Sports & EU or their members members
