|  | Current Issues | No.51 September 2007 |

We need Transparency in International Sport to defend the Olympic Spirit Sylvia Schenk |
Olympic Charta: Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles. The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity. The Olympic Movement is the concerted, organised, universal and permanent action, carried out under the supreme authority of the IOC, of all individuals and entities who are inspired by the values of Olympism. It covers the five continents. It reaches its peak with the bringing together of the world’s athletes at the great sports festival, the Olympic Games. Its symbol is five interlaced rings. The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play. The organisation, administration and management of sport must be controlled by independent sports organisations. Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement. Belonging to the Olympic Movement requires compliance with the Olympic Charter and recognition by the IOC. It is always important to remember one’s own roots, to know where we come from and what we are able to achieve. To read the Fundamental Principles of the Olympic Charter (see above) reminds us that Pierre de Coubertin and his comrades more than a hundred years ago dreamt of a better world when founding the Olympic Movement and initiating the Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was one of the first global movements of civil society, a network aiming at bringing together the youth of the world to do sports and thus to symbolize friendship and peace. With sports becoming a huge economic factor in the modern world, the Olympic Games became commercialised as well. Extensive doping problems make the Games rather a symbol for money ruling all parts of life than for high ethic standards and fair play. Nowadays, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) like Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch, Care International, Terre des Hommes, the World Wide Fund for Nature and many others are recognized as important actors in the international struggle for peace, human rights, education, sustainable development and development aid. Taking part in political discussions for example in connection with G 8 peak meetings, they influence the international agenda. Transparency International (TI) joined this important circle less than 20 years ago: founded in 1993 by Peter Eigen, a former World Bank director. The “Coalition against Corruption” succeeded within a short time in making the fight against corruption an international issue, changing legislation and ethic standards in a wide range of countries. The OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions came into force in 1997 and the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) followed in 2001. TI was, and still is, the answer of civil society to the challenge of developing transparency, independent structures and civil courage as the indispensable basis for stability of democratic institutions, good government, social justice and the certainty of law enforcement, democracy and human rights. Sustainable economic growth including all parts of a population cannot be granted as long as corrupt elites just look for their own advantage. After the end of the Cold War in the early nineties, it became obvious that corruption was complicating, or even preventing, the transition in the countries of the former Soviet Union and also hampering development in many poorer countries. Since then, TI has developed instruments to combat corruption in an efficient way. One of the main issues in the beginning of this fight was to convince people that corruption is not a cultural phenomenon one has to accept, that it is not a part of daily life you cannot really attack because it is so deeply implanted in the way people think and feel, but that there are measures to counter corruption and to change behaviour step by step. In 2007, more than 90 National Chapters (NC) of TI worked with thousands of volunteers, not investigating individual cases but building coalitions in order to encourage systematic reforms within governments, economic life, institutions and society as a whole. Only by a co-operative approach can long-term change be achieved, but of course TI has to be very careful in deciding with whom it is willing to cooperate. A balance between TI’s own independence and the necessary co-operation with partners sometimes, in one way or the other affected by corruption themselves, has to be found.. The NCs work autonomously, encouraging local forces to develop their own approach and especially networking with other local organisations. The TI-secretariat which is situated in Berlin, Germany, supports its local branches, co-ordinates projects, develops know-how and helps to share knowledge within the organisation. TI engages civil society, businesses, governments and international organisations because all of them are affected, all elements of society suffer by corruption. So does sport. The scandal regarding the awarding of the Olympic Winter Games 2002 to Salt Lake City threw a dark shadow over the Olympic Movement and shook it fundamentally. The legend of sport as an “intact world” could no longer be upheld: the expulsion of several personal members of the IOC, the approval of an ethics code and the nomination of an ethics commission followed. Everybody should know by now that sport is as bad and as good as other parts of society and therefore finds a permanent struggle, too, to defend the Olympic Spirit, to keep fair play as a leading principle and to continue the humanistic work started by Pierre de Coubertin. In May 2006 the President of the IOC, Comte Jacques Rogge, stated in a speech at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, organised by the World Ethics Forum, that “Corruption is one of the great threats of modern sport”. Bribing of judges and decision makers, betting scandals, corruption regarding the construction of sport infrastructure, sponsors trying to influence sport decisions such as nominations and, above all, secret doping networks demonstrate the wide range of possibilities in which sport can be corrupted. When I joined TI Germany in 2006, after bad experiences with a lack of transparency and undemocratic decision procedures in international sports, a working group on “Sport and Corruption” had just been founded. I started to work in it and within short time we managed to bring this issue onto the international level, too. At the International Anti-Corruption Conference in November 2006 in Guatemala we organised a work-shop with UEFA and Play the Game being represented. Now a steering committee on Sports and Corruption has been established with members from Ireland, France, Switzerland and Germany. In May 2007 the International Sports Lawyer Association (ISLA), together with, among others, ICSSPE, organised its annual congress with a program addressing “Sport and Doping” on the first day and “Sport and Corruption” on the second day. The combination of both issues helped to shed light onto the structures of national and international sport organisations which have facilitated immoral behaviour under their umbrellas of values for decades. Times have changed since Pierre de Coubertin realised his ideas. Sport is no longer a synonym for a better world, but on the contrary it looks like sport is now years behind development in other parts of society. While great international companies implement Business Principles, discuss Good Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility, the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008 will challenge the IOC’s capacity of sticking to its own ethical standards. Sport as a role model for society, sport champions as examples for fair play and the joy of effort – to come back to these roots of Olympism we need a great effort within the sports movement to reform its own structures and to really combat doping and corruption. It is not only to help the sport organisations to achieve their own goals as laid down in the Olympic Charter but to let the sport with its huge public attention, the media coverage all over the world demonstrate to people in desperate situations, that you can make a difference, that it is worth fighting. If even the Olympic Movement is widely influenced by unethical behaviour, the hope Coubertin wanted to bring to the youth will be destroyed and the Games will loose their legitimate position as a symbol for human development. So time has come now for a new coalition against corruption - with the sport organisations on the one hand and the anti-corruption movement on the other. Contact Sylvia Schenk, Attorney at Law Senior Advisor for Sports, Transparency International Vice-Chair TI-Germany Frankfurt am Main, Germany Email: Sylviaschenk@gmx.net For further information please see www.transparency.org Sylvia Schenk was an Olympic Athlete Munich 1972 (800m running), President of the German Cycling Federation 2001 – 2004 and Member of the Management Committee of UCI 2000 – 2005. http://www.icsspe.org/portal/index.php?w=1&z=5 We need Transparency in International Sport to defend the Olympic Spirit Sylvia Schenk