10 years after the BIBGIS: Towards a better measure of international sport federation governance

Résumé 0

The first governance assessment tool for international sport organisations based on indicators was published in 2013. It was called BIBGIS (Basic Indicators for Better Governance in International Sport). A few similar tools followed. Ten years later, this paper focuses on how indicator-based tools for evaluating international sport organisation governance can be improved. We draw on documents published by the relevant research projects to briefly describe the main sport federation governance assessment tools and then examine more closely the tool developed by the Association of Summer Olympic International Sport Federations’ (ASOIF) Governance Task Force (GTF). We analyse criticisms of the tool and outline possible solutions. This article does not follow the traditional structure of a scientific paper. It is not based on a theory of governance (none is widely accepted) but it tries to propose solutions to the criticisms made by several scholars of these indicator based tools. Criticisms primarily focus on the drawbacks of using indicators and therefore apply to all indicator-based assessment methods. We provide constructive suggestions for improving governance assessment tools, especially the GTF tool and procedure. Such reviews encourage sport federations to improve their governance, but we conclude that better governance does not necessarily improve a federation’s overall performance. Governance assessments should not be confused with performance assessments.