CONFERENCE ON PROMOTING SAFETY, INTEGRITY, EQUALITY

AND INCLUSION IN SPORT

Hellenic Parliament, Athens (Greece), 4 November 2024

Remarks by Mr Theodoros Roussopoulos

President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

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Dear Colleagues,

I am extremely happy to welcome you today in Athens for this important and timely conference and it is hard to think of a better place to discuss the issues that will be addressed here over the next two days. This is not only my home city, but most importantly the cradle of democracy and home to the Olympic spirit, which should and will remind us of our shared responsibility to ensure good governance and safeguard the integrity of sport.

Our Assembly has taken the initiative of organising, jointly with the Hellenic Parliament, this first interparliamentary conference entirely focused on sport, with an aim to bring together parliamentarians from across the Council of Europe member States and representatives from the sport movement. I wish to underline that this conference might be the first of a kind, but certainly not the last one. It constitutes an integral part of our long-term strategy of working of sport-related matters.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has long recognised the transformative power of sport as a force for societal progress but also an instrument that influences political debates. Sport has the power to promote the values that define our very institutions: human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.

The role of sport extends far beyond the football stadium or swimming pool. It has ceased since a long time ago to be just a leisure activity where people simply measure who jumped longer or lifted more weight. Sport, due to huge public following and enormous media attention, has evolved into a powerful tool that teaches important values to those involved in it such as fairness, integrity, mutual respect, equality or inclusion. But sport is not only educating those directly participating in the sporting activities, but also has a capacity to transmit and to promote values, ideas and modes of behaviour to the society as a whole. It has the power to bring people together, inspire hope, and foster inclusion.

But also, sport, as part of our society, reflects and plays out many of its problems. It is plagued by the same scourges and faces significant challenges, such as violence and abuse, corruption, doping and match-fixing, as well as gender imbalances, discrimination, hate speech and the exclusion of marginalised groups.

Sport, in the countries ruled by authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, often becomes a means of propaganda and an important source of legitimacy for these regimes, thus being used to transmit and solidify the values we strongly oppose. This is frequently accompanied and covered by rather naïve or even hypocritical claims that sport and politics should not be mixed. In the current context of a worrying democratic backslide in Europe and when full-scale war of aggression waged on our continent by the Russian Federation, it is simply dangerous to leave the power of sport to influence people in the hands of dictators. Instead, we should find a way to direct it to promote the values of peace, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

As representatives of parliaments, policymakers, and stakeholders, it is our duty to ensure that sport remains a positive force for our societies. We must join efforts and work together to achieve this goal! We must develop and maintain viable and effective partnerships and synergies with sport organisations. Sport bodies and athletes’ associations worldwide must be empowered and supported to make robust human rights commitments, in a mutually reinforcing partnership with human rights organisations such as the United Nations and the Council of Europe.

We recognise that substantial progress has been made in recent years as regards gender equality and combating discrimination, integration of migrants, people with disabilities, LGBTI people. Integrity and human rights are slowly but surely integrated into the vocabulary of the sport organisations. New mechanisms to address corruption and undue political influence start to emerge and play visible role.

There is already considerable normative basis which also includes, among other mechanisms, the Council of Europe’s Convention on Anti-Doping; Safety, Security and Service at Sporting events; and Manipulation of Sport Competitions.

But challenges remain and we must not be complacent. We must acknowledge – and not underestimate – the risks that doping represents for our youth, as well as for the overall integrity of sport. Furthermore, we must recognise and address the danger of organised crime infiltrating sport. Organised syndicates make huge profits through corruption, illegal betting and the manipulation of sport competitions, laundering their proceeds with limited risk of being caught. The phenomenon of violence and sexual abuse in sport, the extent and scale of which has only recently come to light must not be overlooked. Despite our increased awareness of the issue, I regret to say that we, as policymakers, have yet to develop policies that are strong enough to tackle it effectively.

Huge amounts of money that are poured into sport of course help engage people in physical activities, but also generate serious integrity risks that should be adequately managed. The use of sport to improve the image of totalitarian and non-democratic regimes and to justify their actions is also on the rise.

These are the challenges we face and we must not shy away from them pretending that sport is an area of entertainment that serious politicians should not interfere with.

Our conference will address some of the challenges I mentioned in more depth and will empower us – parliamentarians and sport officials - to:

-         Promote an overall culture of responsibility, respect, accountability, transparency and inclusion within the sporting community.

-         Promote meaningful integrity, equality, and inclusion as a central part of sport policies.

-         Foster collaboration and build alliances to create a sporting environment that upholds these principles and values.

-         Promote innovative solutions and best practices.

-         Work together to ensure that sport remains a powerful force for good in our societies, a force that stands against evil, a force that reflects the very values we hold dear at the Council of Europe.

I thank you all for your presence and I look forward to engaging and exciting discussions that will, I am sure, result in meaningful progress towards achieving the goals of the Conference.

I wish you all a successful conference and a great stay in my beloved Athens!