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Recommendation 2120 (2018)
Towards a framework for modern sports governance
1. The Parliamentary Assembly, referring
to its Resolution 2199
(2018) “Towards a framework for modern sports governance”,
stresses the need to set up a global framework for good governance
in sport that respects the principles of democracy, transparency,
accountability and integrity, and upholds the sports ethics values
of fair play, respect for human rights and human dignity, solidarity,
diversity and prohibition of any form of discrimination.
2. The Assembly welcomes the final resolutions of the 14th Council
of Europe Conference of Ministers responsible for Sport (Budapest,
29 November 2016), notably the recommendations made in the resolution “Towards
better governance in sport through enhanced co-operation between
governmental bodies and stakeholders in sport”, and the action already
taken thereupon.
3. In this context, the Assembly commends the work which has
already been carried out by the Council of Europe’s Enlarged Partial
Agreement on Sport (EPAS); in particular, it welcomes the drafting
of a new Committee of Ministers recommendation to member States
on the promotion of good governance in sport, the collection and
publication of good practices in sports governance and the creation
of a database on alleged cases of corruption. It calls on the Committee
of Ministers to urge all member States to join EPAS.
4. It further commends the role of the Council of Europe, notably
through the active involvement of EPAS in setting up the International
Partnership against Corruption in Sport (IPACS) and in assuming
leadership of its task force on optimising the processes of compliance
with good governance principles to mitigate the risk of corruption.
5. In light of the above, the Assembly calls on the Committee
of Ministers:
5.1. as regards improving
the legislative framework, to:
5.1.1. take into consideration
the Assembly’s recommendations as outlined in paragraph 17 of Resolution 2199 (2018) in
the drafting of the Committee of Ministers recommendation to member States
on the promotion of good governance in sport, and in particular,
urge all member States not to tolerate any impunity and to take
measures to be able to prosecute and sanction corrupt behaviour
in the context of sport;
5.1.2. as a further step, consider drafting a Council of Europe
convention on good governance in sport in order to complement the
Organisation’s existing conventional basis relating to sports ethics
and the fight against corruption and fraud, and enable efficient
monitoring of compliance with the convention;
5.2. as regards the harmonisation of sports governance standards,
to take the lead within IPACS in:
5.2.1. promoting the establishment
of common governance standards in sport, taking into account the
recommendations presented in the appendix to Resolution 2199 (2018);
5.2.2. setting up a multi-stakeholder round table within the
task force on optimising the processes of compliance with good governance
principles to mitigate the risk of corruption with a view to launching
a discussion on creating certification standards with the International Organization
for Standardization (ISO) on governance of sports organisations;
5.3. as regards compliance with standards, to:
5.3.1. ensure
that the recommendation to member States on the promotion of good governance
in sport provides for the monitoring of its provisions, including
a systematic review system of the national policies of good governance
in sport and their implementation, and produce a dashboard of the
available monitoring results with a view to their critical analysis;
5.3.2. support, at international level, the setting up of a professional
and independent ethics rating system of sports organisations;
5.4. as regards knowledge-sharing and participation in multi-stakeholder
platforms, ask EPAS to:
5.4.1. continue collecting information
on best practices and create online resources that are regularly
updated, thereby allowing the Council of Europe to assume the role
of an international clearing house on this matter;
5.4.2. conduct trend analyses, based on alleged cases of corruption
in sport, on information collected by the Group of States against
Corruption (GRECO) and on the monitoring dashboard, and submit them
to it, together with proposals, once a year;
5.4.3. participate actively in the work of all relevant multi-stakeholder
platforms on sports governance and integrity.