TITLE:
Effective Sporting Organisations: A Practitioner’s Perspective
AUTHORS:
James Ferguson
KEYWORDS:
Funding, Governance, High Performance, Coaching, Development, Welfare, Competition, Sports Science
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.9 No.12,
December
13,
2021
ABSTRACT: The success of national sporting systems depends on the effectiveness of
its component parts. In Australia and many countries with similar sports
systems, these
are the national and state/regional sporting organisations through which sport is developed and promoted domestically
and athletes are groomed for international competition. This paper seeks
to identify the factors essential for the effectiveness of those organisations.
It takes as a model a major sports research paper released in 2015. Entitled Successful Elite Sports Policies: An International Comparison of Elite Sport Policies in 15 Nations, this paper identified
policy factors leading to national sporting success in the international arena
by the countries covered, based on placings over a number of Olympic Games. It
is now known as the SPLISS study. Based on extensive research over the 15
nations examined, the study concluded there were nine essential pillars supported
by 138 critical success factors leading to a nation’s sporting success.
Australia ranked highly in meeting these factors, aligned with its success in international
sport in recent years. National sporting organisations vary greatly in terms of
size, funding and popularity. There are nevertheless certain principles
contributing to success applicable to all. Like the SPLISS model, nine central pillars that contribute to an effective
national sports organisation are identified, being finance support; governance, management and
culture; program operations; talent identification and development; athlete
welfare; training facilities; coaching; competition; and sports sciences.
Critical success factors are identified under each pillar.