Know the key providers of

sports development
In this assignment I will look at the key providers of sports
development. I will describe them and look into their
structure and their role as providers.

I will begin by looking at 3 different providing schemes.

2.1 Providers
The three schemes I have chosen to look into are;
1. Governing Bodies.
2. Private sector providers.
3. National organisations.

Governing bodies are organisations that oversee a

particular sport in terms of its management, rules,
structure and development. They operate at all levels;
locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Two very
famous governing bodies in football are – ‘FIFA and EUFA’.
Football is governed by FIFA. They overlook world
football. Europe has a separate governing body, called
EUFA. Both of these organisations have similar aims in
terms of its development. Their aims can be summarised
as; promoting, protecting and developing the game of
football.
FIFA’s mission is to - 'Develop the game, touch the world,
build a better future'. www.FIFA.com

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Both organisations can have an input on the rules,
structure and development of the sport. They have a say
for football for youngsters. They decide on the size of the
pitch and the amount of players on a team. At elite level
they can change the rules at times to make the sport a
safer, friendlier game. Having said this, when elite players
go against the rules and put a negative image of the
sport, FIFA and EUFA will come down on them with serious
consequences. They include fines and bans.
At a national level, governing bodies want people to be
healthy, safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive
contribution and achieve economic well being. The WRU
are a governing body in rugby. They work at the different
levels. At national level they have some key goals. These
include;
• Growth and retention – Increasing the number of
players and addressing retention.
• Raising standards and addressing abusive behaviour
– Creating a safe and positive environment.
• Developing better players – Focusing on improving
the quality of the 5-11 age groups.
• Running the game effectively – Leading and
governing the game of rugby.
They deal with all clubs in a country. In this case; Wales.
All people involved in rugby in Wales will drive their aims
and objectives towards the WRU goals.
The aims are aimed at younger people who have not
reached the elite level. Increasing participation, raising

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standards, developing youngsters and running the game
effectively is the most important thing.

The Football Association of Wales is an example if a

regional governing body. They deal with all clubs in a
country or area. There are a member of FIFA and EUFA.
Therefore they follow their rules and structure. Having
said this they can choose the way they run and can modify
the running of their region to suit it better.
They may aim their plan at people and teams who receive
less attention from the larger Governing bodies. For
example;
• Mini soccer for children
• Girl’s and women’s football development
• Equality and inclusiveness
• Ethnicity and disability partnership
These are some of the strategies and regional governing
body may use. They may change the rules around a little
bit to suit the target groups. This will help development of
participants.
At local level, the governing body will work with all the
clubs in a district. The aims are specific to the local area.
They will come from the national body but may vary
slightly. The main ones are;
• Equality of access – This means that everybody can
get access to sporting facility. For this the governing
body may need to organise transport at subsidised

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 prices so that all of the locals have an equal chance
of accessing sporting facilities.
• Support for player development – They need to give
players the chance to develop. This includes giving
them the required facilities, coaching and funding to
allow them to develop up the performance pyramid,
to the elite level, where they can give something
back to the governing bodies which aided them in the
first place. E.g. sponsorship advertisement.
• Caring coaches – They need to provide caring
coaches to the local sports teams and individuals.
They need to check that they are safe to work with
youngsters and have completed their coaching
qualifications.
Governing bodies work at different levels and
geographical locations.
Local governing bodies work with all clubs in a district.
Regional governing bodies work with all clubs in a country
or area. National governing bodies work with all clubs in a
country and International governing bodies work with all
the countries in the world who are affiliated.

Private sector providers

These businesses usually get involved in sports
development to further their business interests, but they
often give benefits to the local communities. Sports and
people can benefit from these types of businesses. They
can provide new venues and sponsorship and administer

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leagues, or run activity camps. Nike, Adidas and Mc
Whither are examples of private sector providers. Nike
and Adidas often pump money into sports team for kit and
equipment and Mc Whither sponsor the youth league for
Mid Wales. The national lottery is also another provider
which helps sport and participants. They created a sport
lot where a percentage of their money goes into local
sports around the UK. They have funded a new football
ground in Swansea and brand new athletics facility. As a
result of funding sport and athletes, the businesses are
advertised. They become better known and in some cases
receive media attention on TV, which can have a positive
affect of the success of their business.
National organisations
Sport England and Wales are examples of national
organisations. They are responsible for building the
foundations of sporting success, by creating a world
leading community sport system of clubs, coaches,
facilities and volunteers.
They try to create a vibrant sporting culture working in
partnership with national governing bodies, national
partners, and the local government and community
organisations.
Their focus is around 3 major outcomes. These are –
growing, sustaining the number of people taking part in
sport and improving talent development to help more
people excel into the elite level.

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They seem to be getting a lot of success in these three
areas. ‘One million people taking part in more sport and
more children taking part in five hours of PE and sport a
week.’ (Adams et al, 2010)
More people seem to be satisfied with their sporting
experience and are continuing to take part in sport ‘and
25% fewer 16-18 year olds dropping out of at least 9
sports. These targets account for 60% of the national
organisations investment’. (Adams et al, 2010).
‘Statistics show that there has been improved talent
development in at least 25 sports in the UK. These targets
account for 25% of their investment.
(www.Sportengland.co.uk)’.

2.2 Structure
All organisations have a structure or set up that staff
needs to follow to help deliver their programmes. This
gives lines of communication and authority, defines roles
and makes links to the outside organisation.

Committees
Some organisations have committees. This is most
common for the voluntary sector. It is usually made up of
3 people; A chairperson, treasurer and secretary. The
chairperson will have overall leadership of the
organisation, the treasurer looks after the financial
business and the secretary does the admin and
communication work. The committees make the decisions

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for a club. They have regular meeting where they suggest
how they running of a club can be improved. This
structure is not used by any of the providers I have
previously talked about.

Working groups
This structure has a looser arrangement than a committee
and is often found where organisations work in
partnership. They function by each partner sending a
representative to work with the others in the group. This
makes sure that all parties involved are kept informed and
are able to achieve the aims set out by the scheme. They
don’t usually tend to have decision making powers.
The working group is the centre where it begins. They
send out – Coaches, representatives of sponsors, local
authority officers and other partners or stakeholders.
‘5x60 and Dragon sport’ are examples of schemes which
may use this structure.

Forums
These are sets of people who tend to be experts on the
issues involved with sports development. These people
often meet and discuss any issues and suggest ways of
improving sports development. They are not the actual
people who make the changes but they do all the thinking
for the organisations so they can take the ideas and put
them into action. Here is a list of the people who may
attend a forum meeting;

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 • Funding body
• Club captains and representatives
• Sports development officers
• Police
• Welfare agencies
• Coaches
• Community leaders
• PE teachers
The providers which I talked about before may attend
these meetings so they can solve any problems they may
come across and improve the running of their
organisation.
Consultation groups
These can be large groups of people as they tend to be
used for consulting a range of people who might be
involved in a scheme for sports development. This allows
a well informed set of decisions to be made, but it may act
slowly. People who might be consulted include; politicians,
club reps, social services, police, sports scientists, tutors,
volunteers, safety experts and so on. The things which are
brought up by the consultation group are include;
research and data, ideas, previous schemes, experience
and many other things.

Sport Wales maybe be consulted by these people at some

point, to improve their development scheme.

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2.3 Roles
Sports development has many contributors as we have
seen. They all have different aims and structures. There
are different types of providers. The first type is called an
‘Enabling provider’. They provide facilities or resources to
enable participants to play, start up a club, or improve
their skills. The second is ‘Facilitating providers’. They
help a sport or target group by providing coaching or
courses in administration and refereeing. The next is
‘Direct delivery’. This is when the delivery of a programme
is directly delivered by a sports developer. A ‘Strategic
provider’ is a programme which links to other, large scale
plans and maybe called an integrated approach.
‘Operational providers’ are run at club level and tailored
and delivered to the clubs. And finally; ‘Advisory
providers’. They help organisations that have never run a
sports development scheme for a certain target group
before and needs some advice. – (Adams et al, 2010 &
class notes)

They also have a role that focuses on the participation

level of the continuum, which helps increase the number
of people taking part in sports. This can be across age
ranges, gender, ability levels and all the different sports.
This is the most popular type of scheme in the UK. Most of
the funding goes in to try and get the scheme to get as
many people taking part in sport as possible.

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Performance is another factor which organisations must
deal with. Organisations are usually created and just
target one specific sport, for example; FIFA for football.
They focus on improving talent development and focus on
youngsters, to try and work them into the elite level of
football. They look at the fundamentals, learning and
training and competing.

Sports development officers

These are professional officers who are qualified to work
with clubs and local authorities. They need to be able to
manage their budget, participants, resources and venues.
They aim to offer a wide range of sports and increase
participation. They can be classified into 3 main groups;
• Sport specific – They may employ a specialist to
focus on the development of one particular sport
such as netball.
• Non sport specific – The most versatile, as they may
work with clients in different sports for different
purposes, such as in deprived areas with little
resources.
• Community – This officer will have a remit to work
with different age groups and abilities in the local
community and is likely to incorporate aims such as
participation.

Bibliography -

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OCR book – Adams et al, 2010
Class notes
www.sportengland.co.uk

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