Getting Australian Sport Back on Track

They say that sport and Politics do not mix, but most fans of sport and followers of politics know that to be a lie. Modern day sport needs to stay close to Politicians in order to receive their share at the funding trough. Politicians know that if they are actively seen at and supporting sport they may well swing a few thousand votes their way or to their party.

Whether non-sports fans like it or not sport has the ability to captivate the imagination. It has the power to distract people from their everyday lives and also has the power to generate immense national pride. Of course there are other fields where that is also the case. The performances of all who were part of the London and Sydney Olympic opening ceremonies achieved that as much as the athletes in both hosting countries.

Many a politician has acknowledged the power of sport. Nelson Mandela acknowledged the power it had to break down barriers, even former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in his early reign acknowledged that the world often judged a nation by the behaviour of its sportsmen and women.

Australia loves to promote itself as “a great sporting nation.” If we look at what the country has achieved relative to its population it has every right to be proud, and to hold that opinion. Which maybe makes the following words by Mahatma Ghandi appropriate, “a nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.”

Australia has always been a country where the soul is about bucking the odds, coming out on top, playing hard but playing fair, shooting from the hip, and winning. That was why the sandpaper incident in Cape Town last year was so hard to take for many Australians. Australia had crossed the line. They had cheated. They may hate losing. They hate being beaten. They may love winning, but you don’t cheat.

There is no doubt that the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games was a watershed moment for Australian sport. The Australian Olympic team failed to win a single Gold medal at the Games. This was reported as “a national embarrassment.” Showing how even in that era a perceived failure by the country’s athletes cut to the core.

Australia’s men’s Hockey team won the only silver medal along with four bronze medals. Two of these came in Sailing, one in swimming and the last in the Equestrian team eventing.

This result was the catalyst for the creation and the opening of the Australian Institute of Sport in 1981. Ironically modelled along the lines of the former Eastern Bloc sporting programs, without the drugs. Success at the 1984 Olympic Games saw the AIS receive a funding bonus, up 60% on the funding provided prior to the Games. Over the next two decades Australia became the envy of many around the world when it came to sport.

The Government gave generous funding to the institute. The facilities available to the athletes were state-of-the- art, and the Institute employed some of, it not the best coaches and sports scientists – which was a fairly new role- in the world. Australia started to excel on the World stage again.

However, sadly according to some involved, complacency crept in amongst those running the Institute. As a result other sporting programs started to tap Australia’s top coaches and sports scientists on the shoulder and offer them riches and opportunities that they could only dream of in Australia. So the cream of the crop went to help other nations develop their athletes.

Those given the responsibility of running the Institute also assumed that the Government would always support such a venture. That their successes would guarantee them longevity. With the best coaches leaving and other countries also investing heavily in their sport, Australia was no longer out in front, the pack was closing in on them and some were passing them by.

As early as 1985 there had been grumblings around the country in relation to money. Where was the AIS headed and where was the money being distributed?

With the Board becoming more involved in the day to day running of the institute a Government enquiry was launched. In 1987 the government formalised their decision to rationalise federal assistance to Australian sport and the AIS merged with the Australian Sports Commission (ASC). The Australian Sports Commission had been set up in the main to take responsibility for growing general sports participation across the country, but was also responsible for high performance sport.

Today to all intents and purposes the AIS and the ASC or rather Sport Australia as it is now known, are one and the same, although the AIS’s sole focus is on elite athletes and coaches. Sport Australia took responsibility in regards to where the Government funding went.

In 2012 a new leadership direction for the AIS was announced. It has been politely called “controversial,” but to many in sport it was simply dumb. It was initially named “Winning Edge” but tends to now be referred to as “Australia’s high performance strategy.” The key components of this strategy were that national sporting organisations would now take complete responsibility for AIS sports programs from the end of 2013. Also, funding would be based on the success that each sport achieved on the global stage, especially World Cups and Olympic Games. A failure to bring home a medal would see funding drastically cut.

We should not ignore the expectations that the Australian Olympic Committee put on our athletes and which many media outlets took as gospel. They predicted that Australia would win 37 medals in Rio, and that 13 would be gold. They even said which sports we would win medals in!

So was it therefore a coincidence that at the first Olympic Games since the introduction of the “Winning Edge” program Australia achieved its worst Olympic result in 24 years. That is almost quarter of a century. Not since 1992 had Australia ranked as low as 10th on the medal table when they won 27 medals. In Rio in 2016 they also finished 10th winning 29 medals. However, it should be pointed out that in Barcelona there were 257 medal events and in Rio there were 306 medal events.

Is it any coincidence that Cricket Australia and the national team in the review released this week have been criticised for having a “focus on winning without counting the cost and an assumption that spirit of cricket would simply endure.” What do you expect when all of the funding is based around success? If you fail to succeed, or as a sport drop out of the top rankings, you will see your slice of the Government pie reduced? Cricket is not alone in facing this dilemma.

Apart from the failure of some key executives to see the warning signs and evolve Australian sport there are two major issues facing Australian sport. Too many sports are heavily reliant on Government funding, and the “Winning Edge” program saw funding go to the Governing bodies to distribute, and regrettably much of that funding is being chewed up with executive salaries and the elite athletes. Next to nothing is making its way down to grassroots, or being allocated to marketing to increase participation.

Whichever Political party is in power they face a major conundrum. They know that the country as a whole is buoyed by sporting success. It takes people’s minds even in momentarily off the day-to-day slog of working to pay a mortgage and bring up a family. Yet to give the nation that feeling costs a lot of money.

Leading up to the Rio Olympics the Australian Sports Commission figures showed that in the four years to Rio, $340 million of public funds was spent on Australia’s teams and athletes competing.The ASC spent $376.7m on the high performance programs of 35 sports since the London Games.

Swimming is where Australia traditionally picks up a clutch of medals. Over the four years leading up to the 2012 London Olympics, the ASC figures showed a total of $34.5m was sunk into the sport. Australia left London with 10 swimming medals, one gold, six silver, and three bronze. Between London and the Rio Olympics the investment was up to $37.9m. The medal tally was three Gold, four silver and three Bronze, another 10 medals.

For any Government justifying such expenditure is going to become harder. Which begs the question why some of these sports have failed to find a way to be less reliant on Government funding?

Now the Sport Australia want to try and rationalise the way sport is run in Australia. Something that we suggested back in 2015 in Should Non-Elite Sport Be Run As a Business? The key comment in this piece was made by the CEO of the Edmund Rice Foundation, Anthony Ryan, who had said in an interview on the ABC that he had changed the way this charity operated and had steered the Foundation away from being a Not-For-Profit organisation. He said that “the default of most not for profits is they turn into a fundraising body to try and resource what they are trying to do.” Is this not true of Sporting Bodies.

Sport Australia chairman John Wylie it has been reported has written to national sports bodies asking them to commit to new governance reform called “One Management”.

This “One management” would see Sports required to streamline their management and remove state-based layers over the next three years. Then a single operating model would be established that would bring together “strategy, workforce and financial management.” Instead of the state-based bodies there will be state-based federations or committees in place, with voting rights over national boards and a say in other corporate governance matters. So Sport Australia is advocating cutting costs rather than trying to find alternative ways for sport to fund itself.

This may work for some sports, but is a recipe for disaster for others. If you were looking for an example, look at Football. With the recent Board issues the state bodies who were supposed to represent the stakeholders in their state failed to canvas those stakeholders and in the main voted with the wishes of the FFA board. Why? In order to stay on side with those who hand down the funding.

If this is such a great idea why doesn’t the Government scrap state parliaments? That would be a far better way to save money.

If it is to work everyone in a job in sport across the country should need to re-apply for their job within that sport. Why? This is simple, if this model is to work it is going to require the best people in the key roles. There is no doubt that the person in a role with one state body may be better than those in his or her rival states, they may even be better than the incumbent in the Sport’s head office. Why should the sport lose good people and keep those less capable?

Mr Wylie, who was heavily involved in the “Winning Edge” Program is now advocating that Sports across the country start looking at ways to save money. This is in itself a valid request, but when he says that by centralising sports to be governed nationally “benefits are achievable without sports losing touch with the grassroots and vital volunteer base or breaking faith with state governments that provide funding or the expectation it will be invested in a sport in their home state,” the public will take a great deal of convincing. Too many sports have already lost touch with grassroots. Too many sports are seeing Government funding eaten up by administration and Elite programs.

Centralising is going to result in breakaways. Breakaways will see the sport as a body fracture and the Government funding will cease as the Governments will, as they did in the past, say that unless there is one body running that sport they will not support it with Government funds.

It is worth pointing out that Mr Wylie is a respected businessman who is very adept when it comes to negotiating financially lucrative deals. When he was appointed as Chairman of the Australian Sports Commission Senator Kate Lundy said “”John has extensive experience in Australia’s corporate and sport sectors and I know he will ably steer the board and oversee the continued growth of sport in Australia.” Yet his “Winning Edge” program has been a disaster, and that has still to run until 2022. He was reappointed Chair in 2017 and his term will end in 2022. Despite his impressive credentials from a business perspective and having served on some impressive Boards one has to ask is there not a conflict of interest having the Chair of Sport Australia serving as Deputy President of the Melbourne Stars T20 Cricket team? Should not the role mean that the incumbent has no links to any sport in an official capacity?

There is no doubt that Australian sport needs re-structuring. However part of that restructure comes with Governance. As a sporting nation more attention needs to be paid in relation to whom is representing our sports at Board level. Why are they there and who proposed them? Why are they interested in serving the sport? There must be complete disclosure in relation to “benefits” received by board members. How many Board members really bring a required skill set to the table?

The funding model from Government has to change. It cannot be based on participation numbers. As most people know far too many sports are fudging these numbers in order to access more Government money. Equally the Government if it is going to continue to support sport needs to monitor where those funds are going. Money that is supposed to be spent on increasing participation and youth development, bringing through the next generation is not getting through. As a result, as a country some of those being selected for development teams are not the best players, but their parents are the best payers; also sadly in many cases potential sponsors.

Politics and Sport do mix whether we like it or not. Those at the top of sport tell the politicians what they think they want to hear to keep the flow of money coming, and to keep their jobs. Yet if Politicians want sport to be a vote winner they must look at grassroots and see how little money is getting through, how much parents are having to pay for their children to participate. Reduce that cost, build from the bottom up and have the elite level, who have marketable athletes and teams go out and find corporate dollars. Only then may we start to see a turnaround in results.

(Well done if you made it to the end. Sorry rather a long piece. AM).