It is a small revolution that Valérie Fourneyron, Minister of Sports, announced to Denis Masseglia, President of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF). Furthermore, the general competence of local authorities in sports should be maintained.
Attached to this letter is a note entitled “the spirit of the law” — referring to the sports modernization law expected in the first half of 2014 — indeed calling for “a sharing of missions and responsibilities between the sports movement and the State based on a logic of responsibility.” However, it specifies that “a balanced partnership is not synonymous with co-management, quite the opposite.”
This announcement comes at the time when the CNOSF is expressing its position on its “project for French sport,” which aims to “transition from a nation of athletes to a sporting nation” and which, according to the organization, requires “renovating the French sports model.”
In this fourteen-page document examined on January 9 by its extraordinary general assembly, the CNOSF lists its expectations, notably specifying: “To empower is to delegate to other sports actors, and in particular to federations, the areas of intervention where they are most effective, with the administration being able to ensure the proper execution of actions benefiting from public funding.”
And the organization explicitly calls to “rethink the relationship to establish a true partnership as a substitute for the notion of state supervision.”
In response, Valérie Fourneyron proposes specifying the various public service missions assigned by law to the federations (which may take different configurations depending on the disciplines); to establish the contract-based setting of objectives and resources (human and financial) as a basic principle to give precise content to these missions; and, finally, to adopt a results-based evaluation logic rather than obligations of resources for the periodic follow-up of these objective agreements.
“This organizational model will consequently lead to abolishing the principle of state supervision of sports federations,” specifies the ministerial note.
Which leads Valérie Fourneyron’s entourage to say that the ministry and the sports movement now share a “convergence of views.”
Regarding the relations between sports federations and the State, the note further specifies that adopting standard statutes will no longer be a sine qua non condition for obtaining approval. The law could limit itself to setting “essential governance and disciplinary procedure requirements.”
Furthermore, the role of local authorities in sports governance will be a key point of the future text. In its note to the CNOSF, the ministry highlights that the general competence clause of local authorities in sports corresponds to “a strong consensus.”
Reaffirmed by the recent decentralization laws, this general competence should not be questioned. However, the ministerial note specifies that, concerning the distribution of competences, the question is henceforth “to determine the ways and means to establish the most effective and balanced local coordination possible between the action of the State, that of the three levels of local authorities and inter-municipalities, and that of the sports movement.”
The relations between professional sports and local authorities are not specified in the note. Yet, issues related to the ownership of sports venues, financial assistance, and standards, among others, are at the heart of elected officials’ concerns.
Finally, on the social front, the ministry notes that “the sports movement wishes to be more involved in the processes leading to the determination of needs and the specification of the content of training, diplomas, and professional titles in this area.” A ministerial mission is currently working on the issue.
