Workshop Recap: Integrating Safe Sport into Sport Integrity

On October 19th, the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) Athletes Network for Safer Sports hosted an online workshop titled, “From Awareness to Action: Integrating Safe Sport Into Sport Integrity,” to discuss how to ensure the fight against harassment and abuse in sport is fully recognized as an essential component of sport integrity.

The session featured Emma Thomas (she/her), former Muay Thai fighter, survivor, sport ethicist, safe sport advocate, and Advisory Council member of the SRA Athletes Network for Safer Sports; Hera Liew (she/her), former figure skater, Strategic Officer at Asia Safeguarding in Sport Network, and SRA Advisory Council member; Mercy Murithi (she/her), sport ethicist, policy advisor, and PhD candidate; and Mike McNamee (he/him), philosopher, Professor of Applied Ethics, founding editor of the international journal “Sport, Ethics and Philosophy,” and Programme Director of the Masters Degree in Sport Ethics and Integrity (MAiSI).

Emphasizing the importance of survivors who have broken the silence around abuse, the growing body of research in the field, and advocacy efforts to embed safeguarding in world sport, the session discussed the barriers the movement faces in translating this growing awareness into concrete and effective solutions.

“Safe sport grew into a field that had activism built right from the beginning. And that’s different from some of the other integrity threats.”

The session kicked off with Mike providing a broad overview of the sport integrity field. In his view, good governance; anti-doping; equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), competition manipulation prevention; and safe sport together compose the broader sport integrity domain, with these issues often intersecting. What is substantially different, he argues, is the activist nature of some of these topics. This is particularly evident in the field of safe sport, which has roots in feminist movements and is fundamentally driven by the need to advocate for individuals’ wellbeing rather than the protection of the sector itself.

“We have to prioritize the protection of people over the protection of sport as a concept,” added Emma. In her opinion, while all other integrity issues are equally important, safe sport and safeguarding should sit at the very top of the agenda, serving as the foundation for legitimacy and promoting a people-centred approach that prioritizes individuals over institutions.

Beyond these fundamental differences, Mercy highlighted the culture component and the role it plays in safeguarding. She stressed that, in some regions, certain practices are perceived as the norm regardless of the harm they might inflict, making them particularly difficult to address and regulate. As a solution to this, she argues that strict regulations should serve as a deterrent, as in the case of anti-doping and competition manipulation. The discussion continued, addressing the grey areas related to emotional abuse, coercive control and other harmful practices that are heavily dependent on power dynamics, culture, and context.

“You need top-down structure for meaningful, contextualized local practice to exist in the first place.”

Hera highlighted the recurrent tension between top-down safeguarding approaches and their capacity to be meaningfully implemented on the ground. While acknowledging the difficulties of ensuring these measures are effective in practice, she explained, based on her experience working on safeguarding at the local level, that overarching guidelines are essential. She argued that certain elements, such as human rights protections, duty of care and independent reporting channels, are non-negotiable and should be mandated and overseen by the highest level of sports governing bodies.

At the same time, local practitioners should be provided with clear direction while also being given the space to be creative and tailor their efforts to the specific needs and realities of their communities.

“People know about what’s happening, but the key question is what happens after we know that there’s harm happening to people within sport,” said Mercy reflecting on safeguarding work at the community level. She emphasized that, in local settings, the sports communities are often tightly knit, where coaches, athletes, parents, and other stakeholders all know each other. Therefore, the real challenge lies in ensuring that what follows is truly independent, particularly when overarching structures and resources do not reach these levels.

“The main issue is the lack of enforceable measures or safeguarding regulations that actually have any teeth.”

Emma underscored the importance of overarching safeguarding standards combined with sanctions for non-compliance. Unlike other integrity issues, such as doping, where frameworks like the World Anti Doping Code and the International Convention Against Doping in Sport provide a clear regulatory basis, safeguarding implementation still depends on the goodwill of individuals and a limited number of organisations. She also noted that safeguarding practitioners are often responsible for different areas simultaneously, despite the complexity of the topic itself requiring a dedicated and well-established team.

“We are missing enforcement by the bodies who have real leverage,” stressed Hera, arguing that safe sport standards risk remaining purely aspirational unless they hit sports bodies where it truly hurts. She pointed to the existence of recognized frameworks such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UNICEF Data Brief on measuring violence against children in organized sports, and the International Safeguards for Children in Sports as substantial groundwork for developing bidding documents. In her view, the enforcement gap will persist unless the sport sector moves from awareness towards enforceable conditionality, ensuring that safe sport carries the same regulatory weight as other integrity issues.

“How much worse could it get? What more should we see for the world to consider it a crisis?”

Mercy raised this question when comparing the driving forces that pushed the sport sector to act. Referring back to the early 2000s, when doping scandals came to public attention, leading sports organisations to take action – she stressed that, when it comes to harassment and abuse, there is already substantial evidence of the systemic nature of the problem, both through academic research and overwhelming numbers of personal accounts.

Yet, the sport sector remains far from fully acknowledging the scale of the problem. “There’s still a kind of cultural resistance to take these issues seriously in sport,” agreed Emma. Both questioned what additional pressure might be needed to convince leaders at the highest level of sport to act. “I wonder if the people who make these decisions, do they listen to experts, join us in workshops or conferences? And what happens afterwards?”

Mike argued that policy development in integrity areas rarely follows a linear path. However, he stressed that unless powerful stakeholders within international organizations take the lead, it is unlikely others will follow. The panel agreed that advocacy and lobbying at the highest levels of sports governance, including the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, and UEFA, represent a critical part of this puzzle. Securing buy-in from the leadership of these organizations would represent a significant step towards driving meaningful change in safe sport.

Although panelists offered different perspectives on where momentum for change is most likely to come from, there was broad agreement that progress will depend on action across every level of sport. Hera emphasized that while there is no single solution or pathway forward, meaningful change happens when individuals and organisations play their part within their respective roles and areas of influence. Echoing this sentiment, Emma expressed solidarity with survivors, advocates, and safeguarding practitioners who continue to push for change, often navigating frustration and resistance while striving to keep these issues on the agenda. Together, these reflections served as a reminder that advancing safe sport requires both sustained advocacy and coordinated action, with everyone contributing to the effort in the ways they are best positioned to do so.