The Century-Long Struggle for the Leadership of World Sport

Abstract In less than a century, sport has evolved from a hobby for a few European gentlemen into a global phenomenon involving people from all walks of life and of all ages. Media coverage of large sport events, especially the modern Olympic Games, has contributed greatly to increasing and widening sport’s appeal and turning it into an activity enjoyed by countless millions of people of both sexes, whether grassroots participants, spectators or elite athletes. Three types of organizations have sought to lead world sport: (1) The International Olympic Committee, which awards Olympic Games to host cities; (2) international sport federations, each of which establishes universal rules for its sport and recognizes national federations; and (3) certain governments and intergovernmental organizations. The century-long geopolitical struggle for the leadership of world sport can be divided into five periods. Although the International Olympic Committee currently holds the upper hand, the emergence of new actors may threaten its dominant position.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was founded in 1894 primarily to attribute editions of the modern Olympic Games to host cities every four years, initially in Europe and the United States, and then throughout the world as of 1956.As the Olympic Games grew in stature, the IOC gradually developed a desire to lead world sport, i.e. the ecosystem of global sport organizations and event owners and organizers that was created in the first world and has spread to the rest of the planet during the twentieth century.This IOC ambition has now effectively been achieved, largely thanks to the huge sums it earns (and redistributes) by selling broadcasting and sponsorship rights to Olympic Games.However, two other types of organizationsinternational sport federations (IFs) and (inter)governmental organizations -contested the IOC's self-proclaimed position as world sport's leader throughout the twentieth century.IFs, most of which were founded before the Second World War, are non-profit associations with year-round responsibility for governing their respective sports, in contrast to the IOC, whose almost sole purpose is to oversee the staging of Olympic Games every four years.The IFs therefore see themselves as more legitimate leaders of world sport.As the Olympic Games grew in importance, certain governments and intergovernmental organizations also began taking an interest in the leadership of world sport, which they felt could no longer be left in the hands of a mere association of private individuals based in Switzerland (i.e. the IOC).
These three important stakeholders (IOC, IFs, governments/intergovernmental organizations) have struggled for over a century to control the leadership of a sector once seen as very positive, but which has been tarnished in recent decades by numerous unethical practices.The evolution of this century-long struggle can be presented through five stages corresponding (1) to the two decades between the IOC's foundation and the outbreak of World War I (1894-1914); (2) the inter-war period (1918-1939); (3) the postwar years to the end of Avery Brundage's IOC presidency (1942-1972); (4) the late twentieth century (1973-2001) with the IOC presidencies of Lord Killanin and Juan Antonio Samaranch; and (5) the first quarter of the twenty-first century (2001-2024) with the IOC presidencies of Jacques Rogge and Thomas Bach.This final stage has seen the emergence of several new actors who may or may not accept the IOC's current dominant position in world sport.Indeed, several scenarios are possible for sport's future leadership.The proposed five stages were deductively established according to the eras defined by the two World Wars (for the two first stages 1894-1914 and 1918-1939) and by changes in the IOC presidencies for the last three stages (From Baillet-Latour to Edström and Brundage 1942-1972; from Brundage to Killanin and Samaranch 1973-2001; from Samaranch to Rogge and Bach 2001-2024) as these changes and pre-and postwar periods marked important policy changes which affected world sport.Based on the results of research by specialists in each period, a first comprehensive overview of the last century of sport leadership provides both an interesting historical perspective on sport leadership and insights into current leadership issues facing sport, such as the situation of Russian athletes at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and the Gulf States' growing power within world sport.

The Invention of World Sport (1894-1914)
At the IOC's inception in Paris in 1894, what is now known as 'sport' was mostly an affair of anglophile gentlemen amateurs such as Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the Frenchman who resurrected the Olympic Games.Indeed, settling on a definition of amateurism was the pretext Coubertin used to bring representatives of sports societies from a dozen countries to the Paris congress that revived the Olympic Games. 1 At the time, only four sports (gymnastics, rugby, rowing, ice skating) had an international regulatory body to set shared rules and bring together the national federations that were starting to be established, mostly in Europe.By the outbreak of World War I, there were 15 IFs, half of which were based in Paris, as was the IOC (Table 1).
All the IFs founded before World War I (except the IF for ice hockey) took part in at least some of the initial editions of the modern Olympic Games between 1896 and 1912, and six sports without a corresponding IF (archery, boxing, equestrianism, hockey, modern pentathlon and golf) took part in some of these games.Moreover, at a time when travel was time-consuming and expensive, several sports took advantage of the presence of national associations at Olympic Games to found IFs, such as swimming in 1908 and athletics in 1912.However, the absence of universally accepted rules for a sport sometimes led to disputes between national teams, as occurred at the 1908 London Olympics, where the American athletics team complained about the use of English rules. 2 The IOC -which quickly abandoned the restrictive name of the International Committee of the Olympic Games -dominated nascent world sport and started to represent a significant regime of international regulation in sport (in particular through the concept of amateurism) before globalization became an overarching societal phenomenon.

Leadership Struggles between the Two World Wars (1918-1939)
The IOC awarded five editions of the Olympic Games before the First World War, two of which contemporary observers considered great successes (Athens 1896 and Viewing their organizers as potential threats, the IOC tried to marginalize them by, for example, including more women in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics (after Coubertin, who was opposed to the idea, had stepped down as IOC president) and promoting so-called regional games in the Far East and South America.In the end, most of these rival games disappeared with the Second World War, leaving the field open for the IOC and the expanding Olympic system (29 countries at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, 49 countries at the 1936 Berlin Olympics), which was becoming more inclusive and universal. 3nother ten sports founded IFs during the inter-war period (Table 2), and a similar number of sports joined the Olympic Games programme.Three of these IFs were presided by Frenchmen, but France's sports administrators were unhappy with the IOC because it chose Antwerp, in Belgium, to host the 1920 Olympics, rather than the French city of Lyon, despite intense lobbying by Lyon's mayor, Edouard Herriot.The IOC had also moved its head office from Paris to Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1915.Indeed, competition for the IOC's leading position in world sport would come from the existing IFs and World War I's two main protagonists.On November 22, 1918, just 11 days after the Allies and Germany signed the armistice ending World War I, France's National Sports Committee (Comité national des sports, CNS), an umbrella organization comprising most of the country's sports federations, adopted a series of resolutions aimed at creating a new world order for sport. 4Its idea was to bring together all existing single-sport IFs, including those that accepted professionals as well as amateurs (e.g. the IFs for football and cycling), within an International Sports Committee (Comité international des sports, CIS), built on similar lines to the CNS.A draft statute projected giving each member IF a certain number of votes according to the importance of its sport and how many affiliated 'nations' it had.French was to be the CIS's official language.The new body would therefore maintain France's influence within world sport, as well as provide a more democratic alternative to Coubertin's IOC, which was seen as too British due to its rejection of professionalism.Aware of the project, the French government set up a sport and physical education department within the Ministry of Public Instruction in January 1920, to be headed by Gaston Vidal, a journalist and 'republican-socialist' (from the left) member of parliament who disliked Coubertin (the feeling was mutual) who was from the right. 5Later the left-leaning government of Raymond Poincaré appointed Vidal Under-Secretary of State for Technical Education, with responsibility for supervising the 1924 Paris Olympics, and then president of the CNS in 1925.Also in 1920 France's foreign ministry set up a 'tourism and sports section' within the Service des OEuvres Françaises à l'Étranger, whose role was to promote France's interests abroad.Sport had become an affair of state in France. 6Coubertin knew about France's ambitions, although he never referred to them directly in his writings.He invited all existing IFs and national Olympic committees (NOCs) to Lausanne in May and June 1921 for an Olympic Congress, three 'consultative conferences' and the IOC's annual meeting (known as the 'Session'), with the aim of resolving troublesome issues such as which rules to apply at Olympic Games and how to define amateurism.The IOC Session, which closed these proceedings, awarded the 1924 Olympic Games to Paris and the 1928 Games to Amsterdam, a move Coubertin termed a 'manoeuvre' . 7The IFs present in Lausanne used the opportunity to establish a Permanent Bureau of International Sports Federations to draw up international rules for the sports governed by its 19 member IFs.It also published a regular bulletin, whose first edition included a list of the Bureau's member IFs. 8 A 'Union of International Sports Federations' , similar to the CIS envisaged by France, would have been stronger than a simple 'bureau' , but the IFs were unable to agree on the form such a union should take.Moreover, the IOC rejected the IFs' demand that all their presidents be co-opted as IOC members.When Coubertin stepped down as president in 1925, the IOC strengthened its ties with IFs wishing to be included in the Olympic programme (especially the numerous IFs that did not have a world championships) by giving them responsibility for sanctioning Olympic competitions in their respective sports and setting the rules and formats for these competitions.The Permanent Bureau of International Sports Federations moved into offices at the Union Vélocipédique de France's headquarters in Paris, but it disappeared with the Second World War and the death in 1941 of the man who had been its mainstay, Paul Rousseau, a journalist and the secretary of the Union Cycliste Internationale. 9evertheless, the idea of forming an overall governing body for sport was not abandoned.One of its main supporters was Frantz Reichel, another French journalist who was also general secretary of France's NOC and of the organizing committee for the 1924 Paris Olympics.Reichel, Rousseau, Vidal (always opposing Coubertin's IOC) and other leading figures in French sport saw the Geneva-based League of Nations, which had been founded in 1920 under the Treaty of Versailles (1919), as a potential supervisory body for sport, which was becoming an increasingly important sector of international relations.Vidal, for example, wanted to set up an 'International Bureau of Physical Education and Sport' in Geneva. 10The IFs also made several attempts to create closer links with the League of Nations between 1922 and 1925, but none of them came to fruition. 11In fact, it was Coubertin who first contacted the League of Nations officially.In a long letter to the League's first president, dated November 15, 1920, he wrote: '[I] could not allow the nearby arrival of [an organization] we have the right to consider a big sister without sending our respects and best wishes' in the name of 'our [sport] groups' .He went on to remind the League's president of 'the strength of the Olympic idea and the ties it creates between the youth of every country' . 12The League of Nations had more pressing concerns than sport, and it did no more than set up a Health Committee (1927) and hold conferences on physical education (in 1929, 1931 and 1937). 13The League of Nations itself was disbanded following World War II, and the creation of the United Nations.
Coubertin had more contact with the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva, founded at the same time as the League of Nations, which had a keen interest in workers' leisure pursuits.Coubertin met the ILO's French director general, Albert Thomas, in 1922, through the intermediary of Sweden's IOC member Sigfrid Edström.Edström was also head of the electrotechnical company ASEA (later known as ABB) and had met Thomas during ILO-organized meetings between employers and trade unions.In 1923 Coubertin wrote a report for the ILO entitled Mémoire concernant l'instruction supérieure des travailleurs manuels et l' organisation des universités ouvrières. 14Six years later, in March 1929, the ILO invited Coubertin to attend a meeting on physical education and sport, after which he told Thomas of his personal and financial difficulties and his desire to be appointed a 'technical advisor' to the ILO. 15However, Coubertin's approaches came to nothing, cut short by Thomas's premature death in 1932, at the age of just 54.Coubertin died in Geneva five years later.
Germany gradually made its way back into international sport and the Olympics during the late 1920s.Although it was not invited to take part in the 1924 Paris Olympics (unlike its First World War allies), it was readmitted at Amsterdam 1928, where it finished second in the medals table, behind the United States but ahead of every other European nation.France came seventh.The IOC co-opted two members from Germany in 1924, followed by another in 1926 and a fourth in 1929, and IFs began readmitting German athletes to their competitions. 16In 1931 the IOC voted overwhelmingly to award the 1936 Olympic Games to Berlin, ahead of Barcelona, and the Nazi regime courted Coubertin as soon as it came to power in 1933.Despite several calls for boycotts over the Nazi regime's virulent antisemitism, the 1936 Olympic Games crowned the 'new Germany's' return to the concert of nations.Following the Games, the IOC appointed the event's sports director, Werner Klingeberg, as a 'technical advisor' with the promise that he would become the IOC's secretary when the present secretary, Switzerland's André Berdez, retired.In other words, Klingeberg was set to become the right-hand man of the IOC's Executive Board, which had taken control of the Olympic movement when Coubertin stepped down from the presidency in 1925. 17Klingeberg advised the organising committees for the 1940 Olympic Games, which the IOC had initially awarded to Tokyo and then to Helsinki when Tokyo withdrew. 18When Berdez died in 1940, though, the IOC appointed his assistant Lydia Zanchi as interim secretary, and Klingeberg never obtained the position he had been promised. 19owever, the Nazi regime had other cards to play in world sport.Most notably, it set up and funded an International Olympic Institute, headed by Carl Diem, who had been general secretary of the 1936 Olympic Games.By 1938 the Berlin-based institute had taken over publication of the Olympic Review (founded by Coubertin), setting aside just a short section for IOC news.In November 1940 Diem, accompanied by Germany's Minister of Sports, Hans von Tschammer und Osten, and Germany's IOC Executive Board member, Karl von Halt, visited the IOC's president, Belgium's Henri de Baillet-Latour, in occupied Brussels.They presented their vision for organizing world sport after Germany's victory, with a younger and rejuvenated IOC consisting of government-appointed members who would ensure the authoritarian regimes' wishes were fulfilled (e.g. for attributing Olympic Games: Mussolini's Rome was a candidate). 20Germany took more radical measures with IFs such as the Union Cycliste Internationale and non-sport organizations such as Interpol, moving these two organizations' headquarters from Paris to Rome and from Vienna to Berlin, respectively. 21According to the German delegation, Baillet-Latour consented to the Nazi proposals for reorganizing the IOC, but he died in January 1942.Sigfrid Edström, who took over as IOC president on an interim basis, had other ideas.Sweden and Switzerland's neutrality enabled Edström to keep in touch with the IOC's headquarters and members, and they finally elected him president in 1946.Von Tschammer und Osten died in 1943, whereas Karl von Halt was readmitted to the IOC in 1950 and remained a member until his death in 1964.Carl Diem remained active in Olympic circles until he died in 1962, but he never became an IOC member.
Thus, the interwar period saw two national governments attempt to take control of world sport away from the IOC.France tried to extend its influence by creating an umbrella organization for IFs and bringing sport under the auspices of the League of Nations, whereas Nazi Germany took a more forceful approach.Neither country's efforts succeeded, and the IOC emerged in an even stronger position thanks to the success of the Olympic Games and the self-regulating 'shared monopoly' it managed to form in alliance with the IFs. 22Great Britain, the world's other great power at this time, also took a keen interest in the leadership of world sport, as shown by the Foreign Office's use of British football teams' international matches to forward Britain's diplomatic interests. 23

The Post-War Years (1942-1972)
As soon as World War II came to an end, the IOC relaunched the cycle of summer and winter Olympic Games, with London and Saint-Moritz in 1948 (without teams from Germany or Japan), Helsinki and Oslo in 1952, and Melbourne and Cortina d' Ampezzo in 1956.Melbourne 1956 was the first summer Olympic Games to be held outside Europe or the United States, a step the winter Olympics did not take until 1972, when Sapporo (Japan) hosted the event.The summer Olympic Games started to reflect the increasing globalization of the world and of world sport as shown by many authors, for instance John R. Short. 24In 1952 the IOC elected a new president, the American Avery Brundage, a fervent advocate of amateurism who had fought a proposal by the United States' NOC, of which he was president, to boycott the Berlin 1936 Olympics. 251952 also saw the Soviet Union's first participation in an Olympic Games, where it finished second in the medals table behind the United States. 26The Soviets had not only shunned the Olympics since the Bolshevik revolution, they had tried to establish alternative games, called the Spartakiades, to compete with both the Olympic Games and the ISOS's Workers' Olympics.Three editions of the Spartakiades were held prior to World War II (Moscow 1928, Berlin 1931, and Paris 1934), following which the Soviet Union supported the World Festivals of Youth and Students in Prague (1947), Budapest (1949), and East Berlin (1951). 27These festivals and Spartakiades continued after the Soviet Union joined the Olympics, albeit with less sparkle, with teams from Eastern European countries (Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia) who had taken part in earlier editions, before these countries came under communist control.It was also at this time that the Soviet Union started to send its athletes to world sport events and IFs began accepting them in their competitions.In 1949, as the Soviet Union and its satellites signalled their desire to reintegrate world sport, the IOC modified its Olympic rules (today known as the Olympic Charter) to require NOCs to be 'independent and autonomous' , that is, free from interference from their country's government.This notion of autonomy -which had long existed without being formally stated -became sacrosanct for the Olympic movement. 28It is now enshrined in the Olympic Charter's fifth fundamental principle and mentioned in several of the Charter's rules.However, world sport could not remain unaffected by the Cold War as both sides were very aware of sport's propaganda potential and geopolitical value.Thus, in 1956 the United States government, which had traditionally adopted a non-interventionist attitude toward sport in the previous periods, began using the Olympic Games to promote its political model. 29America's leaders were very happy for the IFs and IOC to govern world sport, especially as the IOC's president was an American citizen.In the postwar world, sport became a fully-fledged diplomatic tool that could be applied to numerous political issues. 30he most important international body within the new world order that emerged following World War II was undoubtedly the United Nations (UN), founded in October 1945.UNESCO -the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization -came into being in Paris just a month later and quickly became highly respected.Realizing that it could play a role in promoting the use of sport in education and (physical) culture (one of Coubertin's main objectives), Armand Massard, an IOC vice-president and president of France's NOC, established contacts with UNESCO. 31Avery Brundage, who was firmly against any government involvement in sport, disapproved Massard's initiative.Moreover, UNESCO's first few director generals had little interest in sport and did no more than conduct a few surveys and organize conferences on sport's role in education, such as the International Conference on the Contribution of Sports to the Improvement of Professional Abilities and to Cultural Development, Helsinki, 1959.This changed in 1961 when René Maheu, from France, became UNESCO's director general.Maheu wanted to work with the IOC, but with no one to officially contact under Brundage, he worked with the International Council for Physical Education and Sports Science, an association under German law, set up following a UNESCO-sponsored scientific conference at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. 32UNESCO also supported the creation, in 1963, of an International Committee for Fair-Play, which, to the IOC's great displeasure, began awarding the 'Pierre de Coubertin Prize for Fair Play' . 33In 1968, just before the Mexico City Olympics, UNESCO published a 'Declaration on Sport' aimed at encouraging governments and international sports organizations to work together to combat misconduct in elite sport, notably by relaxing the rules on amateurism, which the declaration described as one of world sport's most pressing problems.These events triggered a long-running conflict between the IOC and UNESCO, exacerbated by problems within the Olympic movement, many of whose members were dissatisfied with Brundage's intransigence on issues such as amateurism, admitting the two Germanies (East and West), two Koreas (North and South) and two Chinas (Mainland and Taiwan) to the Olympic Games, and Apartheid in South Africa and Rhodesia. 34n 1959 Konstantin Andrianov, one of the two Soviet Union representatives co-opted to the IOC in 1951, proposed reforming the IOC along similar lines to the UN, with each NOC and Olympic IF having one vote.Andrianov's proposal did not find favour with the IOC's members, unlike the next initiative with which he was involved -establishing an International Olympic Aid Committee (IOAC). 35Originally put forward by French IOC member Jean de Beaumont in 1961, Andrianov enthusiastically supported the idea as part of the Soviet Union's wider strategy to win over what was then called the Third World. 36The IOAC was the precursor of Olympic Solidarity, which currently redistributes the share of Olympic revenues attributed to NOCs. 37Andrianov's efforts also helped him gain a place on the IOC Executive Board in 1962.
Third World countries began making more organized efforts to protect their interests at a conference in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, attended by leaders such as Sukarno (Indonesia), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt), Jawaharlal Nehru (India), and Zhou Enlai (China).This conference laid the foundations for what became known as the Non-Aligned Movement.One of the Movement's founding members, Indonesia, angered the IOC in 1962 by refusing to admit Taiwan and Israel (two NOCs recognised by the IOC) to the fourth Asian Games, which Indonesia was hosting. 38Evoking the need to keep sport separate from politics, the IOC suspended Indonesia's NOC, thereby preventing it taking part in Olympic Games, notably Tokyo 1964.Indonesia retaliated by staging the Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO), an idea originally suggested by Sukarno long before the IOC suspended Indonesia's NOC. 39Fifty-one Asian, African, and Latin American countries took part in the first GANEFO, held in November 1963, although some of them did not send their strongest teams.This was the case for the Soviet Union, which did not want to risk its best athletes being disqualified from the 1964 Olympic Games, but nor did not it want to leave the field open to the People's Republic of China (mainland China), which, at this time, refused to take part in Olympic Games.The second and last GANEFO was restricted to Asian countries, and the IOC readmitted Indonesia's NOC in time for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
These developments raised concerns among the NOCs, whose numbers had doubled due to decolonisation (121 nations competed at the 1972 Munich Olympics, compared with 59 nations at the 1948 London Olympics) and which wanted to have their say.In 1965, at a meeting in Rome organized by Italy's rich NOC, they created the Permanent General Assembly of NOCs (PGA), against Brundage's wishes. 40The IFs did likewise in 1967 when they founded the General Assembly of International Sports Federations (GAISF, rebaptised the General Association of International Sports Federations in 1976).Originally based in Lausanne, it moved its headquarters to Monaco to distance itself from the IOC.Athletics was the only IF not to join the GAISF, as its president was an IOC member who hoped to succeed Brundage. 41The PGA and GAISF were rivals for the IOC's leading position in the leadership of world sport.Their first demand was for the IOC to hold an Olympic Congress to discuss numerous pressing issues (the IOC had ended its tradition of holding Olympic Congresses, begun by Coubertin, following the Berlin congress in 1930.)However, the IOC did not grant their wish until 1973, after Brundage had stepped down as president and Michael Killanin, an Irish lord, had been elected as his successor following the 1972 Munich Olympics.

The End of the Olympic Century (1973-2001)
The tenth Olympic Congress, held in Varna, Bulgaria, in September 1973, gave the IFs an opportunity to present their demands to the IOC.Switzerland's Thomas Keller, the GAISF's president and president of the IF for rowing, who had been passed over for IOC membership in 1969, contrary to Brundage's wishes, took on the job. 42Keller used his speech at Varna to openly criticize the IOC for its unrealistic position on amateurism, its failure to provide clearly defined criteria for including IFs in Olympic Games, the incompetence of some sports administrators, and the gigantism of Olympic Games and their ceremonies.He declared that the IOC should respect the decisions IFs make for their respective sports, or accept the consequences of its failure to move with the times (implying the 20 years of Brundage's presidency). 43He even went as far as to say that the Olympic movement did no more than organize a sports event every four years, in contrast to the IFs, which govern their respective sports throughout the year.These were ideas he had already expressed in the previous year's Olympic Review. 44Following the Varna Congress, the IOC gradually abandoned its position on amateurism and removed the word 'amateur' from its Olympic rules. 45Moreover, the IOC-IF-NOC working group that had prepared the congress, of which Keller was a member, continued as the 'Tripartite Commission' .Keller was also appointed to the IOC's Olympic Programme Commission, which suggested sports, disciplines and events to include in Olympic Games.Keller became the strong man of world sport and increased the IFs' power. 46t UNESCO, Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow from Senegal took over from René Maheu as director general in 1974.M'Bow wanted the Third World to have a larger say in the governance of world affairs including sport, which he considered too Eurocentric.To this end, UNESCO held its first International Conference of Ministers and Senior Officials Responsible for Physical Education and Sport (MINEPS I) in Paris in 1976. 47'Bow's opening address was followed by a speech from France's Minister for Youth and Sport in which he called for nothing less than a new system of governance for world sport, an echo of the position Vidal had expressed 50 years earlier.The next person to speak was IOC president Lord Killanin, who advocated cooperation between the IOC and UNESCO, while drawing clear boundaries between competitive and elite sport, on the one hand, and leisure sport (or 'sport for all' , as it was increasingly being referred to) and physical education, on the other.In fact, the IOC was very concerned about sport becoming subject to UNESCO-coordinated government interference and the threat this would pose to the IOC, NOCs and IFs' autonomy.48 MINEPS I led to the creation in 1978 of a permanent Intergovernmental Committee for Physical Education and Sport (CIGEPS), comprising 18 members from UNESCO member states, elected for four years by UNESCO's General Assembly.The CIGEPS's work was to be funded by an International Fund for the Development of Physical Education and Sport (FIDEPS), established to attract extra-budgetary contributions from member states and other stakeholders.This fund was never very large.Immediately after MINEPS I, UNESCO adopted an International Charter of Physical Education and Sport, a document it had been preparing for some time.49 Although this charter was non-binding, it showed UNESCO's desire to play a leading role in the governance of world sport.1978 was also the year in which the IOC adopted the title 'Olympic Charter' for the document setting out the main Olympic rules.50 Over the years, this Olympic Charter became incrasingly constraining for the organizations of the Olympic system such as IFs, NOCs and OCOGs.
The Council of Europe was another intergovernmental organization that began taking an interest in sport during the 1970s.Initially comprising 47 member states from all parts of Europe, it is 'the continent's leading human rights organization' and the instigator of the European Court of Human Rights. 51In 1973, as part of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, it launched the European Sports Conference, an east-west forum on elite sport and sport for all. 52The Council also organizes meetings of European sports ministers, the first of which, in 1975, adopted a non-binding European Sport for All Charter.Revised in 1991 and 2021 under the name European Sports Charter, Article 4.3 recognizes the autonomy of sports organizations, stating: 'Sports movement organisations … enjoy autonomous decisionmaking processes and should choose their leaders democratically in accordance with good governance principles' . 53Finally, the Council has drawn up conventions on spectator violence and misbehaviour (1985, fully revised in 2016), anti-doping (1989), and the manipulation of sports competitions (2014).Most member states and some non-member states have ratified these first two conventions.
Terrorist attacks (Munich 1972) and extensive boycotts (Montreal 1976 and Moscow 1980) made the 1970s and 1980s a very difficult period for the Olympic Games and therefore for the IOC.Yet, it was also at this time that the IOC started earning substantial revenues from broadcasting rights, beginning with a multi-million dollar contract for the 1972 Olympic Games.The IFs and NOCs obtained a proportion of these revenues, but the largest share went to Olympic Games Organising Committees (OCOGs). 54In 1979 the People's Republic of China joined the Olympic movement, probably persuaded by the Olympic Games's ever-growing importance, although it meant accepting the existence of a separate NOC for Taiwan, forced to rename itself the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee.China competed in its first winter Olympic Games in 1980 (Lake Placid), but it did not participate in a summer Olympic Games until Los Angeles 1984, as it boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. 55Just prior to Moscow 1980, the IOC's members elected Spain's Juan Antonio Samaranch to succeed Lord Killanin as IOC president.Samaranch revolutionized the Olympic system. 56He began visiting every NOC, each time asking to meet the head of state or government to press for public support for developing sport and the Olympic Games.One of his first priorities was to reduce the influence of Thomas Keller's GAISF.As the GAISF's main role was to negotiate the distribution of Olympic Games revenues between IFs, in 1983 Samaranch supported moves to create two separate associations, one for the 21 summer Olympic IFs (Association of Summer Olympic International Federations -ASOIF) and one for the seven winter Olympic IFs (Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations, AIOWF). 57Indeed, the large differences in revenues from summer and winter Olympic Games and in the audiences each Olympic sport attracted made for difficult negotiations between the IFs.In addition, Samaranch won over certain IFs by increasing the number of sports on the permanent Summer Olympic programme from 21 to 28 (adding progressively tennis, table tennis, badminton, baseball, softball, triathlon, taekwondo) and adding new disciplines controlled by existing Olympic IFs to the summer and winter programmes (for example beach volleyball, mountain biking, snowboarding, short-track skating).
The IOC also began allowing professional athletes to compete in Olympic Games (e.g. in tennis and basketball) at the discretion of the IFs, which had long been calling for the old amateurism rules to be abandoned.These reforms satisfied the IFs and Western Bloc, partly thanks to Samaranch's cordial relations with the presidents of sport's largest IFs, which had chosen leaders from Latin America and southern Europe, notably João Havelange at FIFA (elected president in 1974), Ruben Accosta at the International Volleyball Federation (elected president in 1984), and, most importantly, Primo Nebiolo at the International Association of Athletics Federations (elected president in 1981).Nebiolo went on to become the ASOIF's first president.As the icing on the cake for Samaranch, in 1979 Mexico's Mario Vázquez-Raña was appointed president of the PGA, soon renamed the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC).Vázquez-Raña held this position for 30 years and ensured the NOCs never contested the IOC's pre-eminence. 58Keller died in 1989 at the age of just 64 shortly after he had resigned the presidency of the GAISF. 59He was replaced by Kim Un-yong, from South Korea, the president of the IF for taekwondo and an IOC member who was close to Samaranch.Kim ran the GAISF half-heartedly without ever having any major objectives except for holding an annual gathering of IFs at its headquarters in Monaco.
Despite being boycotted by the Soviet Bloc (except for Romania), the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics were a great success, especially financially with over $230 million in profit, part of which was redistributed to the NOCs.Following these games, the IOC launched its TOP (The Olympic Partners) international sponsorship programme, and in 1992 it began directly receiving broadcasting rights, a percentage of which it redistributes to OCOGs (Organising Committees for the Olympic Games), NOCs and IFs.At first, the IOC redistributed a proportion of these initially quite modest sponsorship revenues only to the NOCs (notably the United States, home to most of the first TOP sponsors), but the IFs subsequently gained a share thanks to pressure from Nebiolo, who finally became an IOC member in 1992. 60Table 3 gives an idea of the increasing economic importance of the IOC after Los Angeles 1984 and the creation of the TOP sponsorship programme, and the subsequent dependence of IFs and NOCs upon IOC contributions.The Olympic Games of the end of the twentieth century provided both the material and ideological conditions for the IOC to assert a strong leadership of the Olympic Movement through subsidies to NOCs and IFs (and local organising committees) and through most athletes' wish to bask in a millennial tradition.Similar dependence is experienced by the winter IFs of AIOWF.
At UNESCO, director general M'Bow was weakened by his focus on the Third World, his insistence on the need to create a 'new world order of information and communication' , and the United States' (1984) and United Kingdom's (1985) withdrawals from the organization. 61Frederico Mayor Zaragosa replaced M'Bow as director general in 1987 and held the post until 1999.Samaranch got on much better with Zaragosa, a fellow Spaniard, and UNESCO made fewer efforts to get involved in leading world sport.Thus, MINEPS II (Moscow 1988) and III (Punta del Este, Uruguay, 1999) focused solely on physical education and sport for all. 62Nevertheless, Samaranch set up an IOC Sport for All Commission in 1984 so UNESCO would not have a free hand in leisure sport. 63In fact, Samaranch was more interested in cultivating relations with the UN itself than working with UNESCO.Barcelona 1992 was the first Olympic Games to include all the IOC's affiliated NOCs/countries, including post-Apartheid South Africa, the Community of Independent States resulting from the break-up of the Soviet Union, and Serbia's so-called independent athletes (following agreement with the UN, which had imposed sanctions on the former Yugoslavia). 64he European Union's symbols -Ode to Joy and the blue flag with yellow starswere used at the Barcelona summer Olympics and Albertville winter Olympics opening ceremonies, both of which took place in the European Union in 1988.The Olympic Games were now universal and the IOC recognized as a major geopolitical player by governments around the world according to Byron Peacock. 65mboldened by the size of its single market and the 1995 Bosman ruling, the European Union began forcing sports organizations to follow European Union law on the free movement of workers and on free competition.Nevertheless, lobbying by the IOC, Europe's NOCs, IFs and continental federations persuaded the European Union to include an article in the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon stating that it would 'contribute to the promotion of European sporting issues, while taking account of the specific nature of sport, its structures based on voluntary activity and its social and educational function' (article 165).To the disappointment of some outside observers, the European Union also agreed not to contest the role of international sports organizations, most of which were based in Europe, in governing world sport. 66However, the EU financed several projects to assess the governance of IFs through the Erasmus + programme. 67The IOC and IFs (and their continental confederation such as UEFA) now closely monitor the sport policy of the EU and the emerging case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ).Three recent decisions of the ECJ in December 2023 could affect the way IFs lead their sport in the EU. 68n a new, substantially revised version of its Olympic Charter, adopted in 1991, the IOC declared itself to be the 'supreme authority' in the Olympic movement (Olympic Charter, Fundamental Principle 5, now Fundamental Principle 3).Rule 2 in the new charter reformulated the IOC's role to highlight its contribution to the leadership of world sport, stating: The role of the IOC is to lead the promotion of Olympism in accordance with the Olympic Charter.For that purpose the IOC: 1. -encourages the coordination, organization and development of sport and sports competitions; 2. -collaborates with the competent public or private organizations and authorities in the endeavour to place sport at the service of humanity; 3. -ensures the regular celebration of the Olympic Games. 69e IOC had already relegated celebrating the Olympic Games to third place in its list of roles during Killanin's presidency (1972-1980), but this new charter was the first time it had placed collaborating with the public authorities and private bodies (e.g.IFs and sponsors) as its second role.

The Geopolitics of Sport in the Early Twenty-First Century (2001-2024)
In 1995 the IOC's Session chose Salt Lake City to host the 2002 winter Olympics.However, it later emerged that Salt Lake's bid committee could have won the votes of 30 IOC members by providing various forms of bribes, ranging from cash to college scholarships and luxury holidays. 70The scandal, which broke at the end of 1998, was huge and extremely damaging for the IOC.After an internal enquiry, it excluded six members and issued warnings and reprimands to a further dozen members.Another six members either resigned or died before being held to account for their actions.Many people called for Samaranch to resign, but he responded by thoroughly reforming the IOC's statutes in line with recommendations made by a specially convened commission called IOC 2000. 71These reforms came into force in 2000.They included limiting IOC presidents to two terms of office (8 + 4 years), lowering the upper age limit for IOC members from 80 years to 70 years, setting up an Ethics Commission and Code of Ethics for IOC and NOC members, limiting the number of IOC members to 115 and creating a commission to check potential IOC members' backgrounds.More significantly, the IFs obtained something they had long been demanding: IOC membership for 15 Olympic IF presidents or senior executives, who would remain IOC members until the end of their terms at their IFs.Similarly, the IOC agreed to co-opt 15 NOC presidents and 15 active athletes, including 12 elected for eight years by Olympians and three proposed by the IOC's president to ensure greater diversity than would be achieved if all the athletes were chosen by election.These changes gave the IFs, NOCs and Olympians a form of direct representation within the IOC for the first time in the organization's history.Even though there are only 15 places for the 40 or so Olympic IFs and another 15 places for more than 200 NOCs, many of the IOC's other members (now limited to 70, with no more than one IOC member per country) are/were senior IF and NOC officials or former elite athletes.These 70 members are elected for an initial term of eight years, with most being re-elected for at least one subsequent term, unless their behaviour during their first term is deemed inadequate.
In 2001, as these reforms were being implemented, the IOC's members elected Jacques Rogge, from Belgium, as their new president.Kim Un-yong, from Korea, came second, despite almost being excluded from the IOC in 1999 because of the Salt Lake City scandal, whereas Richard Pound, from Canada, whom many people had expected to win, only came third because he did not have Samaranch's support.Pound subsequently focused his efforts on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), serving as its president from 1999 to 2007 and remaining an active member of its board until 2017.WADA was established in 1999 in the wake of the 1998 Festina-Tour de France doping scandal, when IOC was still reeling from the Salt Lake City scandal.In its weakened position, the IOC was forced to accept a hybrid anti-doping agency, with equal representation for governments and Olympic stakeholders (IOC, NOCs, IFs), rather than a body entirely under its control, as was first planned. 72ADA's World Anti-Doping Code, adopted in 2003, provided the first ever set of unified anti-doping rules applicable to all sports/IFs and all countries.All the summer and winter Olympic IFs became signatories of the World Anti-Doping Code, with which they must comply if they wish to be included in the Olympic Games programme (bye-law to Rule 45 of the current Olympic Charter).
The need for an instrument to make the code legally binding throughout the world provided an opportunity for UNESCO to once again take a central role in sport, which it seized by drawing up an International Convention against Doping in Sport.Adopted in 2005 and subsequently ratified by almost all UN members, the convention obliges signatories to set up national anti-doping agencies, carry out testing in and out of competition, accept the jurisdiction of a foreign tribunal (Court of Arbitration for Sport) over doping disputes, and modify their domestic legislation in line with the code. 73This regime combining hard law (of states) and sport's soft law (World Anti-Doping Code, Court of Arbitration for Sport Code, IF and IOC rules) is unique in the governance of world sport.Other conventions exist (against violence, against manipulating competitions), but they cover only Europe.The 2003 UN Convention against Corruption can be applied to sport, but in this domain the IOC preferred setting up the non-binding International Partnership Against Corruption in Sport (IPACS) to stimulate cooperation between it, certain governments, and three intergovernmental organizations: UN Office on Drugs and Crime (oversees implementation of the 2003 convention), Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (focuses on sports events), and the Council of Europe.This latter body's biannual conferences of European sports ministers have issued numerous recommendations concerning sport and its integrity. 74NESCO held further MINEPS conferences in 2004 (MINEPS IV, held in Athens, after the Olympic Games), 2013 (MINEPS V, Berlin), 2017 (MINEPS VI, Kazan, Russia), and 2023 (MINEPS VII, Baku, Azerbaijan).MINEPS VII proposed making the MINEPS gatherings annual, starting with a conference at UNESCO's Paris headquarters, during the 2024 Olympic Games. 75In order for MINEPS to become a yearly event, UNESCO will have to find host countries willing to finance it.Whereas previous MINEPS conferences had made interesting recommendations concerning problems in sport, notably the size and sustainability of sports events, the Baku conference focused on the 'Fit For Life Alliance' .This programme, aimed at combatting inactivity, especially among young people, confirmed UNESCO's return to the field of sport for all, rather than elite sport.In fact, it had already signalled this revised focus in 2015 by adopting the title 'International Charter of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport' for the updated version of its 1978 International Charter of Physical Education and Sport. 76lthough the new UNESCO charter does not mention the IOC's dearly held notion of sport organization autonomy, in 2014 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution 'support[ing] the independence and autonomy of sport as well as the mission of the IOC in leading the Olympic movement' . 77A further resolution, adopted in 2016, reprised this phrase while adding 'and of the International Paralympic Committee in leading the Paralympic movement' . 78The UN had already granted one of the IOC's long-standing ambitions in 2009 by awarding it permanent observer status.This rare privilege, reserved for organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Palestinian Authority, and the Sovereign Order of Malta, allows the IOC to appoint one of its members as a permanent ambassador with an office at the UN's headquarters in New York.It also gives the IOC's president the right to address the General Assembly, a right Thomas Bach exercised immediately after being elected IOC president in 2013.Moreover, since 1993, the year before each winter and summer Olympic Games, the UN's General Assembly has adopted a resolution calling for an 'Olympic truce' , tabled by the host country.As in ancient times, when states agreed a truce to allow athletes to travel to Olympia for the original Olympic Games, the modern Olympic truce calls upon UN member states to observe a truce for a period starting a week before the Olympic Games and ending a week after the Paralympic Games. 79In 2017 the UN decided to close its Office on Sport for Development and Peace, founded in 2001 to support the work of a special advisor on sport to the UN's secretary general (the advisor post also disappeared in 2017), and to confide future efforts in this field to the IOC. 80That same year, former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon became president of the IOC's Ethics Commission.As a symbol of this rapprochement with the UN, the IOC's president always invites the UN's secretary general to sit on his right at Olympic Games opening ceremonies.While the IOC worked closely with the UN and the World Health Organisation, another UN agency, during the Covid-19 pandemic, UNESCO has been sidelined from the leadership of world sport.The only area in which it continues to play a major role is the fight against doping, through the 2005 Convention against Doping in Sport, whose 2023 Conference of States Parties adopted a set of general guidelines on sport integrity, drawn up in conjunction with the Council of Europe. 81n 2004 the IOC published a new version of its Olympic Charter in which it highlights its contribution to a certain idea of sport that goes far beyond the Olympic Games.Thus, Rule 2 of the 2004 Charter states: The IOC's role is: 1. to encourage and support the promotion of ethics and good governance in sport as well as education of youth through sport and to dedicate its efforts to ensuring that, in sport, the spirit of fair play prevails and violence is banned; 2. to encourage and support the organisation, development and coordination of sport and sports competitions; 3. to ensure the regular celebration of the Olympic Games; 4. to cooperate with the competent public or private organisations and authorities in the endeavour to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace.
[…] 82 After the 2004 Athens Olympics, the IOC decided to reform the Olympic programme in line with a report drawn up by its Administration and the IFs and in accordance with a vote of IOC members on whether each sport/IF should continue to feature in the Olympic Games.The Session voted to exclude baseball and softball from the Games as of 2012 and four years later to add golf and rugby to the programme as of 2016.The IF for wrestling was almost excluded in 2013.The GAISF was unable to do anything to protect its members' interests.Its president, Kim Un-yong, had been forced to step down in 2003 following accusations of corruption, which resulted in him being sentenced to 30 months in prison.He was succeeded, initially on an interim basis, by the Dutchman Hein Verbruggen, one of GAISF's vice presidents, an IOC member and president of the Union Cycliste Internationale. 83ne of Verbruggen's first actions was to organize a large annual convention, holding the first edition in Madrid in 2003 and the second in Lausanne in 2004.These conventions were a great success, partly because the IOC's new president Jacques Rogge, a friend of Verbruggen's, agreed to hold IOC Executive Board meetings alongside them, partly to give the numerous (at the time) candidates for hosting Olympic Games a chance to present their bids.Moreover, they provided a substantial source of revenue for the GAISF, which had previously had almost no income.Verbruggen used some of this revenue to serve the GAISF's member IFs' needs by, for example, setting up anti-doping and integrity departments to advise IFs that lacked the resources to employ their own experts.However, another of Verbruggen's ideasa series of multisport games for certain categories of sports, notably those not on the Olympic programme (e.g.Combat Games, Mind Games, Urban Games, Beach Games) -took off only slowly due to difficulties in attracting host cities (which had to pay a fee to SportAccord).In 2009 the GAISF changed its name to SportAccord and moved its head office to Lausanne.With numerous bodies wishing to benefit from the legitimacy provided by SportAccord membership, the IFs' umbrella organization had to determine whether an activity qualified as a sport.The four criteria it drew up to guide these decisions offer an interesting definition of what constitutes a sport. 84n 2011, the IOC again modified its Charter and for the first time included the words 'leadership' in Rule 1 ('Under the supreme authority and leadership of the International Olympic Committee, the Olympic Movement encompasses organisations, athletes and other persons who agree to be guided by the Olympic Charter') and 'leader' in Rule 7.1 (' As leader of the Olympic Movement, the IOC is responsible for enhancing the values of the Olympic Movement and for providing material support in the efforts to organize and disseminate the Olympic Games, and supporting the IFs, NOCs and athletes in their preparations for the Olympic Games').85 Also from 2011, many IFs changed their official names from French to English demonstrating the loss of influence that France enjoyed at the beginnings of the twentieth century.The IF for archery (FITA) was the first to do so and became World Archery, followed by World Sailing, United World Wrestling, World Triathlon, World Rowing, World Curling, World Taekwondo, World Rugby, World Athletics, and World Aquatics.
Verbruggen stepped down as SportAccord's president in 2012 due to illness (he died in 2017) and was replaced by Marius Vizer, the Romanian president of the International Judo Federation, reportedly close to Vladimir Putin.Vizer provoked the IOC, in front of its president, at SportAccord's general assembly in Sochi in April 2015, when he described the IOC as an outdated organization and not at all transparent.He put forward a programme for reforming world sport, divided into 20 points to mirror the IOC's Olympic Agenda 2020 20+20 recommendations (adopted following Bach's election as president).One of Vizer's proposals was to hold four-yearly multisport games combining all of SportAccord's IFs' world championships in a single location.This event, held midway between each Olympic Games, would compete directly with the Olympic Games. 86Thomas Keller had already suggested several of these points at the 1973 Olympic Congress in Varna, when he was president of the GAISF. 87Vizer's speech received a very cold reception, and most of the Olympic IFs left SportAccord over the following weeks, forcing its president to resign.
Patrick Baumann, an IOC member and the International Basketball Federation's general secretary, took over the presidency of SportAccord in 2016 and changed its name to the Global Association of International Sport Federations (thereby readopting the old acronym GAISF but with a different signification). 88Baumann's reforms divided the GAISF into four associations of IFs: ASOIF, AIOWF, Association of IOC Recognised International Sport Federations (ARISF), and other IF-members of the GAISF (known as the Alliance of International Members of Sport, AIMS).Each of these associations appointed two members to the GAISF's Council with one association taking the presidency every two years.Baumann (ASOIF) became the first president of the new GAISF.After laborious negotiations with the IOC, he signed a memorandum under which the IOC recognized GAISF member IFs as belonging to the community of world sport.Baumann died in 2018 at the age of just 51 and was replaced by Raffaele Chiulli (ARISF).In 2021 the presidency fell to Ivo Ferriani (AIOWF), an IOC member and the president of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, who organised the dismantling of the GAISF in 2022, despite opposition from several IFs within the ARISF and AIMS. 89SportAccord, which still organizes the IFs' annual convention, took over some of the GAISF's activities.
A seemingly never-ending series of corruption scandals within IFs (notably football, volleyball, ice skating, boxing, biathlon, athletics, wrestling, and weightlifting) during the early decades of the twenty-first century tarnished not only the reputations of individual federations but of Olympic sport in general. 90For example, FIFA was heavily criticized for awarding its 2022 World Cup to Qatar because of possible bid corruption and the bad human rights record of the emirate.This particular edition gave an opportunity to the International Labour Union (ILO) to intervene in world sport concerning the working conditions of the workers building sport facilities for sport mega-events.In 2010, the IOC responded to the many IFs crises by making it mandatory for Olympic IFs to adopt the IOC's Code of Ethics (which was not the case when the Code was first adopted in 1999).Hence, IFs now had to apply the IOC's Universal Principles of Good Governance for the Olympic and Sports Movement (presented to the Olympic Congress in 2009 and immediately adopted by the IOC), especially those concerning 'transparency, responsibility and accountability' . 91In 2015 Thomas Bach told the IFs that the IOC would no longer tolerate scandals ('enough is enough') and asked the ASOIF to help them improve their governance. 92To this end, the ASOIF set up a task force composed of IF presidents, IOC representatives and academic experts, who drew up a set of 50 indicators assessing five dimensions of sport organization governance (10 indicators per dimension).IFs use this tool to self-evaluate their governance by giving themselves a score of between zero ('not satisfied at all') and four ('satisfied in a state-of-the-art way') for each indicator.The governance task force, with help from an external expert, then assesses these scores (confirming, lowering or increasing them) and sums them for each dimension. 93The ASOIF and AIOWF have used assessments based on these 50 indicators to publish four separate reviews of their member IFs' governance (2017, 2018, 2020, and 2022), while members of the GAISF have conducted similar assessments based on a reduced number of indicators.The Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly and sports ministers noted the importance of this work, which has shown a gradual improvement in IFs' governance.Although participating in these reviews is voluntary for IFs, the process has taken away some of their managerial autonomy, because they have no real choice but to apply the ASOIF's governance principles. 94n 2021 the IOC suspended its recognition of the IFs for boxing, weightlifting, and modern pentathlon for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics because of a variety of problems.Weightlifting and modern pentathlon were reinstated in 2023 for Los Angeles 2028 after introducing major reforms, but the IOC definitively withdrew its recognition of the International Boxing Association in 2023 (and therefore its ability to approve and co-organise Olympic competitions) due to 'ongoing concerns around its governance, financial transparency and sustainability and the integrity of its refereeing and judging processes' , problems that the IOC had been asking it to resolve since 2017. 95At the same time, as part of its drive to modernize the programme more quickly than during Rogge's presidency, the IOC has added three new IFs to the programme for Los Angeles 2028 (sport climbing, skateboarding, surfing) and one for Milano-Cortina 2026 (ski mountaineering). 96OCOGs can propose only IOC-recognized IFs as additional sports at Olympic Games, but these additions show other IOC-recognized IFs (members of the ARISF) that there is a real prospect of becoming an Olympic sport.In 2023 the ASOIF -which has become a sort of spokesperson for the IFs -asked the IOC to redistribute a larger sum to summer IFs following the Paris 2024 Olympic Games than it did following Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. 97owever, the IOC no longer countenances inviting the IFs and NOCs to Olympic Congresses.Instead, following his election in 2013, Bach began holding 'Olympic summits' in Lausanne at the end of each year.No party is guaranteed an invitation from one year to the next, but these summits generally involve the IOC's vice-presidents, the heads of the main IFs (athletics, football, swimming) and NOCs (China, United States, Russia), as well as the presidents of umbrella associations (ASOIF, AIOWF, ANOC) and of the IOC's Athletes Commission.Together, they address the most pressing issues of the time (doping, manipulation, governance, future Olympic Games) -as did the tripartite commission of the 1970s and 1980s -and finalize a communiqué that is issued on the day of the meeting.The 2022 summit, held after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, plotted a way of allowing 'neutral' Russian and Belarussian athletes to take part in IFs' competitions, notably qualifying competitions for Paris 2024, without prejudging the possibility of these athletes competing in the Olympic Games. 98The IOC then issued an ad-hoc 'recommendation' that most IFs have followed, the main exceptions being athletics, basketball, and football.Following a review at the end of 2023, the IOC authorized 'strictly neutral' Russian and Belarusian passport holders to compete in the Paris 2024 Olympics.
As well as the numerous rules set by the Olympic Charter, which organizations within the Olympic system must follow, the IOC regularly publishes recommendations, guidelines, directives, frameworks, and strategies applicable to sport in general and covering subjects such as sustainability (2016), harassment and abuse (2017), legacy (2017), athletes commission (2019), transgender athletes (2021), and human rights (2022).Although the Olympic Games are just one component of world sport, their influence and prestige have enabled the IOC to take effective control of the leadership of world sport in the early decades of the twenty-first century.Moreover, as Resource Dependence Theory predicts, many international sport organizations are more-or-less obliged to heed the IOC's injunctions because they depend on the Olympic Games revenues it redistributes (see Table 3). 99at Does the Future Hold for the Leadership of World Sport?
The last century has seen an intense struggle for control over the leadership of world sport between the IOC, the IFs, certain countries (France, Germany, Soviet Union, non-aligned countries), and intergovernmental organizations (League of Nations, then UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and the European Union).The IOC currently has the upper hand thanks to the importance of the Olympic Games, in which all athletes and IFs want to take part, and to support from the UN.Moreover, most IFs depend on the IOC for funding through the sums it redistributes following each Olympic Games. 100 (Some IFs had to take out loans to continue operating when the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics delayed their IOC payments until the end of 2021.)Individual governments and intergovernmental organizations from the UN system are not struggling with the IOC for the leadership of world sport as they did before and after World War II.However, the story of the leadership of world sport is not over.The powerful multinationals (sponsors and media companies) that fund world sport may decide they want to play a bigger role in sport's leadership, as may athletes, who are only indirectly or not at all represented by their IFs.In addition, certain countries want to use sport to raise their profiles in the world.This is particularly the case for the Gulf States (especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia) and Russia, which is following in the Soviet Union's footsteps in this respect. 101Russia intends to host a series of multi-sports events in which athletes will receive large prize money: the BRICS Games (in Kazan in June 2024, with athletes from Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and several other countries), the World Friendship Games (Moscow and Yekaterinburg, September 2024), and a possible Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Games between this Asian body's member states.All these games are possible alternatives to the Olympic Games, and the IOC has warned the IFs and NOCs against them. 102Not that this will deter Russia's president, who is speaking increasingly openly of replacing the current, IOC-dominated system of world sport. 103n 2022 a member of the European Parliament revived the notion of a 'world anti-corruption agency for sport' , an idea originally formulated by scholars at the beginning of the twenty-first century. 104The body they envisage would be a WADA-style agency with responsibility for regulating the whole of sport, not just doping.Academic experts have also suggested establishing an 'International Council of Sport Governance' and/or a Geneva Convention-style intergovernmental treaty that would give a special place to the IOC. 105The debate over who, if anyone, should have overall responsibility for leading and regulating world sport will continue throughout the century, as and when new stakeholders emerge in the Olympic system.

Table 1 .
Ifs created before World War I.
1896 Stockholm 1912).The Olympic Games restarted their four-year cycle as soon as the war ended, with the first postwar edition taking place in Antwerp in 1920.However, the IOC faced competition from other multisport games launched by sport organizations that considered the Olympics too exclusive and 'bourgeois' .These events included the military Inter-Allied Games, held in Paris in 1919; the Workers' Olympiad, held by the Internationale sportive ouvrière socialiste (International Workers' Sport Association, ISOS) in Prague in 1921; the Women's World Games, held by the Fédération internationale du sport féminin (International Women's Sports Federation, FSFI) in Paris in 1922; and the International Universities Championships, held by the Confédération internationale des étudiants (International Confederation of Students) in Paris in 1923.Coubertin and the IOC were, of course, aware of these multisport games.

Table 2 .
Ifs created between World War I and World War II.

Table 3 .
Increasing economic importance of the IoC from seoul 1988.
a Mostly as value in kind.