The final report on good governance in employment relations of Olympic athletes is available

This week we published the final document from the EMPLOYS project (Understanding, Evaluating, and Improving Good Governance in the Employment Relations of Athletes in Olympic Sports in Europe (EMPLOYS)) that received a financial support from the EU’s Erasmus+ Sport Programme as a Collaborative Partnership and was led by the German Sport University in Cologne.

Why was the project undertaken? The field of employment relations of athletes is experiencing fundamental changes. While sport was traditionally shaped by notions of amateurism, voluntary engagement and prestige, the professionalisation and commercialisation changed both the structures and perception of Olympic sport. Against this backdrop, the demands for improvements of the conditions of the social and professional setting of athletes have been voiced more and more loudly by an increasing number of actors in the past years. However, the limited amount of available research data on athletes’ employment and social relations is particularly visible in the field of Olympic sports. This gap was aimed at in the EMPLOYS project.

In the first phase of the project, the Fact Report (LINK) was produced by the academic partners to this project. The study aims at providing a basic understanding and evidence base of the legal and socio-political situation of Olympic athletes in different national contexts of 29 states (EU member states, the United Kingdom and Norway) and beyond.

Based on the results of the study, the project aimed at evaluating the current practices in national and EU contexts on the basis of a rights-based Good Governance Concept and Principles of Good Governance in the employment relations of athletes in Olympic sports in Europe (LINK). Principles of Good Governance (against which an assessment of current practices in the national contexts and on the EU-level was conducted) were formulated and consulted with stakeholders. The final report contains policy recommendations to improve employment relations of Olympic sports athletes in Europe, aimed at various stakeholders that have impact in this area (LINK).