In defence of sport’s blazers: Give them scrutiny, yes, but also empathy
Spend a minute on social media during a major sporting event and you’ll find them: the keyboard warriors, the armchair pundits, the self-appointed arbiters of “what the fans really want”.
Their target? The blazers in the boardroom perceived to be truffling for perks and who wouldn’t know how to find the nearest grassroots facility.
While it has long been fashionable to revile sports leaders, modern methods of communication have ramped up the volume of criticism. The feedback loop is instant and brutal. Accusations of being out of touch, self-serving, slow-moving, and hopelessly bureaucratic coalesce to create a caricatured administrator.
And yet, while there are examples of poor behaviours that reinforce such cliches, the reality of sports governance is far more nuanced and would certainly reassure the average fan or participant if only means existed to lift the veil on this highly complex world.
I’ve written previously about the letter of complaint I received in my early months as chair of UK Athletics. It was a single sheet of closely-typed A4 with narrow margins. Its author, a disaffected club member, had left just enough space at the bottom to scrawl ‘please please please please please just go away!’ – in green ink too, just to conform to stereotype.
He probably expected no reply, or something formulaic. Instead he got a phone call that caught him off guard and, I hope, blunted his nib of dissent.
I’ve carried the memory of that letter with me down the years as a reminder of just how easy it is for antipathy towards sports leaders to take root and their actions be misunderstood, and how difficult it is to quell discontent.
Phone every individual personally who has a beef and there would be no time for the day job. Major retailers have phalanxes of staff answering letters addressed to the chair and CEO, but the biggest sports have just as large a base of stakeholders, none of whom would be satisfied with an impersonal response to an impassioned complaint.
Reading the comments below an article should come with a health warning for those in sporting boardrooms.
“What a dreadful administrator” appeared below a recent feature interview with the ECB’s chair, Richard Thompson. Another reader complained about the apparent luxuriousness of the restaurant he was pictured in that accompanied the article.
Minor barbs, but their effect can be cumulative. Why on earth, then, would one want to lay oneself open to them?
I’m currently in the process of establishing a network for non-executive directors across Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic sporting bodies – very much helped by chairs from a range of these sports, plus a specialist board consultancy.
Its aim is to strengthen the organisations that underpin Team GB and ParalympicsGB. The process has reminded me (not that I needed reminding!) of the breadth of both expertise and passion that are represented across sports boards.
As a fan of GB’s teams, I feel lucky to have individuals of quality fulfilling these unpaid roles that carry such responsibility, are so time-consuming and can attract such fierce and public criticism.
Being on a governing body is a constant balancing act, addressing a range of interested parties: elite athletes, fans, grassroots clubs, commercial partners, broadcasters, governments, and the media. Each has its own visions for the sport and often these are irreconcilable.
My own version of “you can’t please all of the people all of the time” has long been “the best we can hope for is not to be hated too much”. Insufficiently ambitious? Maybe. I prefer to think of it as the reality of governing body life and a reminder that any action (or inaction) will be criticised.
Best then to harness the skills around you, analyse and then act – always with the best overall interests of the sport at heart. Worry too much about how to be a risk averse visionary and you’ll find yourself frozen in place.
There are of course upsides to a board seat in sport. For those who care deeply about a particular sport, serving on its governing body offers a rare chance to shape its future. There is intellectual and practical challenge, and successes create a rewarding feeling of shared communal achievement.
Every non-executive director (NED) will have their own motivations for serving and aspects of the role they find especially rewarding. My personal standout is the insight I get into the work of elite athletes and their coaches, which creates added endorphins when that translates to success in competition.
The skills required of a good NED have been evolving as sports get scrutinised across a widening range of metrics. Boards now have a far broader mix of expertise than was the case, say, 10 or 15 years ago.
While most have a number of directors elected by interest groups within their sport, the proportion of independent NEDs has grown – encouraged in part by the strictures of a governance code administered by the agencies who provide public funding.
Elected or selected, the best directors in sport are those who understand its soul. They recognise that sport is not just a business, but a cultural force with core traditions that need to be nurtured, however much overall change might be required. Sport inflames passions. Cool heads and all that…
If I had one plea of fans and club members, it is this: Yes, hold your leaders to account. Yes, demand transparency and integrity. But also recognise the complexity of their task. These are people trying to reconcile the often irreconcilable with passions running high.
None is perfect. But nor are they villains. In stewarding something that is precious to us all, they deserve our scrutiny but also our empathy.
Call to action
If you are already a director on one of GB’s many Olympic or Paralympic boards, you should by now have seen an invitation to come to the launch of the new network for sports NEDs at the Kia Oval next month. If for whatever reason you haven’t, please do ping me an email to [email protected] and I’ll send you the details.
And if this week’s column inspires you to try and find a seat at the sporting board table – in spite of all I’ve said – then I very much hope to meet you through the network in future!
Ed Warner is chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby and writes his sport column at sportinc.substack.com