World Triathlon, In The Top Ten International Federations With Better Governance Practices

by Olalla Cernuda on 16 Jun, 2020 06:58 • Español
World Triathlon, In The Top Ten International Federations With Better Governance Practices

The Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) has published the findings of the third governance review of its member federations, with World Triathlon reaching the top ten International Federations with better governance practices.

The classification is led by the Badminton World Federation, the International Equestrian Federation, FIFA, the International Tennis Federation, the International Cycling Union and World Rugby, all of them in the group A1.

Behind them, leading the list of the Ifs in the A2 group is FIBA, followed by FIA, ITTF and World Triathlon. Closing the list in this group are World Athletics, World Sailing and World Taekwondo.
Another group of eleven IFs are included in group B while other six are in group C.

The report also considers World Triathlon a role model for the publication of disciplinary decisions, the conflict of interests policies, the contracts with Continental Confederations for development funding, the monitoring of these expenses, the resources dedicated to Paralympic sport and data protection.

The World Triathlon Executive Board, chaired by President Marisol Casado, has been implementing strong governance measures in the last years that have put the International federation in a great position, with policies being implemented also on Continental and regional levels.

Almost all International Federations improved their performance since the last assessment, with the highest scores achieved in the area of transparency. Thirty-one IFs replied to the updated self-assessment questionnaire between November 2019 and January 2020. An independent sports governance consultancy I Trust Sport reviewed the responses and moderated the scores.

The IFs were asked to check their governance against 50 measurable indicators covering five sections: Transparency, Integrity, Democracy, Development and Control Mechanisms. Then I Trust Sport moderated the self-assessed scores following a thorough evidence-based evaluation. The questionnaire was slightly revised for 2019-20 with the aim of ensuring it was up to date but also remained comparable to the earlier editions.  It incorporated two new indicators on safeguarding and on data protection / IT security.

IFs were divided into groups based on their total score and for the first time, the performance of each IF is made public. There are still large gaps between the best and weakest IFs.

ASOIF President Francesco Ricci Bitti said: “A lot of progress has been achieved over the past years and the overall trend is clearly positive. Certain reforms take longer to be implemented as they require changes to the statues or the approval of the General Assembly. The results we are sharing today are a snapshot of the current commitment of the IFs.”

He added: “The environment in which IFs operate has become more complex and subject to more scrutiny. The global health crisis further complicates the situation. Sports need to be well-governed to give themselves a better chance of thriving. It is my hope that the momentum will be maintained to tackle a number of areas where there is still significant room for improvement.”

Marisol Casado, World Triathlon President and IOC member, said: “We are extremely proud of the results of this report, and the work, not only now but in the last few years, we have done in this regard within our Federation. Of course, there is always room for improvement, and we will work to be in the top group in the next edition of the report, but it is great to see that our policies and procedures are respected worldwide, and even considered a role model in some other IFs. And that couldn’t have been done without the commitment and the efforts of all the World Triathlon staff, that have been working tirelessly in the last years, and especially in the challenging circumstances that we are all facing lately with the pandemic”.

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