MMS703 – Sport Governance Assessment

The new nation of Romanzia is highly interested in sport with many different clubs, state associations, and national organisations, but to this point, has been largely run by volunteers. However, Romanzia has provided all sport organisations with enough money to hire all the professional staff they need. With this influx of staff and professionalisation of sport, ‘Sport Romanzia’ (the government’s sport body, similar to Sport Australia or Sport New Zealand) wants to create a new governance code to ensure sport organisations are governed effectively. Unfortunately, Sport Romanzia does not know where to start! Knowing the skills and knowledge of Deakin students, Sport Romanzia has decided to reach out to you for help. More specifically, Sport Romanzia is looking for a report on the critical issues of sport governance from which they will create a sport governance code (like the ‘Sport Governance Principles’ of Sport Australia, or the ‘Code for Sport Governance’ of UK Sport). A sport governance code essentially outlines good governance practices that organisations should adopt. 

Therefore, your task is to write a policy report on sport governance for Sport Romanzia. In this report, you will advise Sport Romanzia on what governance principles it should include in it is new code. It is important you back up your advice and arguments with evidence.

You are not writing the code. Rather, you are preparing the background material and evidence for them to create their own sport governance code.

In your report, you will need to have a section where you advise Sport Romanzia on is the means by which it should implement its new code. You could title this section ‘Implementation Strategy’ or similar.

The ‘Implementation Strategy’ section will discuss whether the code should be mandatory for NSOs to adopt. Should funding be withheld from NSOs if they do not adopt the code? Should the code only be advisory? What flexibility should Sport Romanzia offer its NSOs? Should Sport Romanzia provide governance training, model policies and document templates to NSOs (similar to what VicSport do)? These are key questions to consider when drafting this section.

Some potential governance principles you may wish to recommend to Sport Romanzia include:

• Board Composition (diversity, term limits, independent directors, board size)
• Accountability
• Transparency
• Social Responsibility
• Control mechanisms (e.g., risk management, board evaluation)

You can choose to use these principles or other principles you see as appropriate. Your code should provide a clear argument (i.e. critical analysis) for the importance and relevance of each principle you choose. Within each section it is expected you will:

• Define the principle and key terms
• Critically analyse why the principle represents good governance  
• Provide evidence (e.g., from academic studies and industry reports) to support your arguments

The bibliography provides you with an extensive range of academic literature that you can use to support your arguments. The purpose of the assessment is to demonstrate that you can use academic resources to create a convincing practical argument.