Editorial: Sports fiascos remind City of importance of governance
The world of sport has always been something of a wild west when it comes to corporate governance.
The propensity to hire ex-players to sit on governing committees doesn’t help, as if the ability to play with head over elbow when batting out the day or pick-and-go from the back of the scrum will somehow equip somebody with the ability to steer what are now sizable commercial entities.
Fans are guilty too; nobody really thinks too much about the murky world of football ownership when there’s twenty minutes to go in a pulsating cup game.
But even by sports’ standards, the last few weeks have been particularly grim.
First, the Premier League inexplicably smiled and nodded as the (Saudi Arabian) Public Investment Fund – chairman, Mohammad bin-Salman – promised that it had nothing do with the Saudi state, and gave it approval as a fit and proper owner of Newcastle United. That this came a few hours after the Saudi state and neighbours the Qataris had settled a row over lucrative rights to show Premier League football was apparently entirely unrelated.
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Then in the last 48 hours, the good people of Yorkshire Cricket Club declared that one of their players being called a “Paki” was merely “banter” which required no further action, and Swiss authorities finally brought charges against former FIFA and UEFA officials Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, who remained in their posts as the most senior people in football for years longer than they should have.
This stuff matters. Governance matters.
Sports clubs are now businesses, and they should be run like them. Investors and sponsors now have their own responsibilities, too: challenging those at the top of sport, and living out their commitments on ‘ESG’ even when they come into conflict with the glamour of a sporting partnership. The ‘G’ is just as important as the ‘E’ – even if it doesn’t come with a trip to Glasgow and a brush-by in the corridors of Cop-26.
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