Hollow promises about improved governance in Polish sports? A summary of the workshop conducted with representatives of the Polish sport sector.
The increase in the number of governance-related regulations introduced recently in the Polish sports sector might be perceived as an attempt to challenge the status quo regarding governance in national sports. However, according to the opinions of the young leaders who attended our workshop on sustainability of Polish sport organisations, held at the Institute for Sport Governance office in Warsaw in June, the landscape is more complicated.
But why would we even pursue improved governance in Polish sports? Throughout the years we have been studying its state, both at the national sport federation and club levels, and the general situation seems stagnant. And in the international comparative studies, governance in Polish sport organisations places them close to the lowest end of the spectrum, what might be associated with organisational failures and not delivering expected public value.
Facilitators of better governance and greater responsibility in the Polish sport sector
On the one hand, our participants recognised that some steps, especially by the sector leaders (in the case of Poland, the Ministry of Sport and Tourism and the Polish Football Association) have already been taken. It is crucial, given that the Polish sport system is in general top-down, meaning that most of the time the impulse to change comes from the top institutions and then spreads across the sector.
The Ministry of Sport and Tourism introduced their Code of Good Management for Sport Federations in 2017, which at that point was a priority of the former minister and now current WADA president, Witold Banka. In 2016, the Ministry of State Treasury presented the good practices handbook for state-owned companies investing in sponsorship. According to the ministry under the changed government, an updated version of such handbook is being prepared, which will focus on sport-organisations governance. In 2023, the Polish Football Association published their Sport Sustainability Strategy, and consistently, new requirements on societal responsibility have been introduced in the top football leagues licencing process (which by now have come to force).
The issue is with the implementation gap. The ministerial project has not been implemented. The Polish Football Sport Association regulations on clubs to not require publicly publishing any information, and according to the decisions published by the Licencing Committee just a single club from the large pool the policy applied to (over 70 clubs) failed to comply in 2024. This outcome seems dubious given the results of our independent study on the social responsibility of Polish football leagues.
Hard regulations apart, in the environment of sport organisations, pressure on sustainability and improved governance is indisputable. Companies in the various sectors put more emphasis on ESG and therefore require their partners and supply chain to do the same. This applies to sponsored companies as well. One of such pending regulations, the CSRD directive, will lead to putting more emphasis on governance of the sponsored entities, such as sports organisations.
Barriers to improved governance
Aside from the lack of willingness or power to hold sport organisations accountable among the dominant entities in the sector, several other barriers to improving governance in sport organisations were identified in the Polish context.
Customers in Poland, and especially sport enthusiasts, to a very limited degree take responsibility into account in their decision-making processes. While according to the global consulting firms research, Polish customers are mindful of brands sustainability, according to the sport organisations representatives’ declarations and actions do not go hand in hand. Transparency has been mentioned as an exception.
Given the lack of pressure from fans, the representatives of sport organisations believe that social responsibility is currently perceived as a burden and a cost rather than an investment. There have been organisations representatives who mentioned the value of well-defined and presentable responsibility in their negotiations with sponsors.
Internally, sports organisations lack resources that are necessary to undertake organisational change. Firstly, this applies to lack of knowledge, as there are no experts in the area. Second, without clearly definable benefits and a lack of urge resultant of limited control over compliance, boards and management staff are unwilling to put responsibility higher on the organisational agenda.
Unexpected long-term impact of poor implementation
This ostentatious implementation might have a deeper consequence for the Polish sports sector. The regulations represent external pressures on sport organisations, omnipresent on the European market. If those policies go unexercised, in a near future sport organisations will become unfit for partnerships with commercial organisations, thus with less revenue streams and limited ability to achieve societal impact.
Little pressure on compliance will also lead to a lower willingness to apply principles of good governance the next time a new policy is presented. Perceptions of the new requirements introduced by the Ministry of Sports and Tourism to the Polish sports federation, regarding having a more balanced gender representation on the boards and audit committees of each national sports federation, are already affected by the failure to implement the previous governance regulations.