The responsibility to ensure observance of sports ethics belongs to all those who are directly or indirectly, associated with sports and especially those who influence and encourage the involvement and participation in sports.
These include:
- Governments at all levels, including the agencies working with governments.
- Sports-related organisations including sports federations and governing bodies, sports sponsoring concerns, physical education associations, coaching agencies and institutes, medical and pharmacological professions and mass media.
- The commercial sector, including sports goods manufacturers and retailers, sponsoring concerns and marketing agencies; and
- Individuals including parents, teachers, coaches, referees, officials, sports leaders, physical education expert, administrators, journalists, doctors and pharmacists and those role models who have achieved levels of sporting excellence and fame; those who work on a voluntary or on a professional basis. Individuals may also have responsibilities in their capacity as spectators.
Each of these institutions and individuals have a responsibility and a role to play. This code of sports ethics is addressed to each one of them. This can be effective if all involved in sports are ready to take on the responsibility identified in the code.
Government
Government has the following responsibilities:
- to encourage and follow ethical standards in all areas of society where sports are conducted;
- to improve controls with regard to integrity and ethics in funding of amateur and leisure sport;
- to stimulate and support those organisations and individuals who have demonstrated ethical principles in their sports-related activities;
- to cooperate in promoting and monitoring the implementation of the code of sports ethics;
- to empower and encourage physical education and sports teachers and instructors to promote sports ethics in school curricula and refer to the positive contribution of sports to humankind and society;
- to commit in preserving the integrity of sports under threat especially from match fixing, trafficking in young sportsperson and illegal betting;
- to support, as far as possible, all initiatives aimed at promoting sports ethics, particularly among youths, and encouraging institutions to make sports ethics a central priority;
- to continue to promote, in cooperation with the sports movement, the promotion and monitoring of the prevention of racism, xenophobia (hatred and fear of one another) and racial intolerance in sport;
- to encourage research, both nationally and internationally, in order to improve our understanding of the complex issues surrounding young people’s involvement in sports; and
- to identify the opportunities for promoting sports ethics.
Sports-related Organisations
Sports-related organisations have the following responsibilities:
A. Concerning the framework and context of sports ethics
- to publish clear guidelines on what is considered to be ethical or unethical behaviour and to ensure that, at all levels of participation and involvement, consistent and appropriate incentives and/or sanctions are applied;
- to ensure that all decisions have been taken in accordance with a code of ethics for sports;
- to raise awareness of the concept of sports ethics within their sphere of influence by means of campaigns, awards, educational materials and training opportunities. Such initiatives should be closely monitored and their impact evaluated;
- to establish systems which reward sports ethics and personal levels of achievement in addition to competitive success;
- to consider and formulate rules governing the right to participate in competitions and the organisation of categories in competitions in the light of the principles of sports ethics; and
- to assist and support the mass media in highlighting the contribution made by sports ethics to education and society.
B. Concerning work with young people
- to ensure that the structure of competition acknowledges the special requirements of growing children and young people and provides the opportunity for graded levels of involvement from recreation to high-level competition;
- to encourage modification of the rules to meet the special needs of young people and put the emphasis not only on success in competition but also on sports ethics;
- to ensure that safeguards are in place within the context of an overall framework of support and protection for children, young male/female, both to protect them from sexual harassment and abuse and to prevent the exploitation of children, those with gifted abilities; and children with special needs.
- to ensure that including those associated with a sports organisation, who bear the responsibility for children and young people are qualified at an appropriate level to guide, train and educate them. It is also to be ensured that they understand the physiological and psychological changes associated with the child’s process of development and that they are familiar with and take into account the emotional and relational functioning of human beings.
Individuals
Individuals have the following responsibilities:
A. Concerning personal behaviour
- to behave in a way which sets a good example and presents a positive role model for children and young people;
- to refrain, in all circumstances, from rewarding unfair play, demonstrating it personally or condoning it in others and to take appropriate sanctions against such behaviour; and
- to ensure that their own level of training and qualifications is appropriate to the needs of the child at the different stages of sporting commitment.
B. Concerning work with young people
- to make the health, safety and welfare of the child or young sportspersons is the first priority and ensure that such considerations come before everything else, i.e., reputation of the school, club, coach or parents;
- to extend the initiatives taken by the international federations and organisations in order to promote quality standards in the activity of sports agents;
- to provide a sporting experience for children that encourages a life-long commitment to healthy physical activity;
- to avoid treating children as small adults, but be aware of the physical and psychological changes which accompany their development and how these affect sporting performance;
- to avoid placing expectations on children which they are unable to meet;
- to make the participant’s pleasure and enjoyment the priority and never exert undue pressure on the child which impinges on their right to freely choose to participate;
- to take the same level of interest in all young people regardless of their talent and emphasise and reward personal levels of achievement and skill acquisition in addition to competitive success;
- to be attentive and responsive to children’s needs, so that each child feels appreciated as an individual, irrespective of his or her sporting prowess;
- to encourage young children (a) to devise their own games with their own rules, to take on the roles of coach, teacher, official or referee in addition to that of participant; (b) to devise their own incentives and sanctions for fair or unfair play; and (c) to take personal responsibility for their actions;
- to provide young people and their families with as much information as possible to ensure awareness of the potential risks and attractiveness of reaching high levels of performance.
