New book on sports governance and EU

In a new book called 'The EU in international sports governance', Belgian Arnout Geeraert, PhD in sports governance from KU Leuven and Play the Game, analyses what type of authority the EU can actually exert over private organisations such as FIFA.

With an outset in a principal-agent perspective, the book establishes that while the EU does have a range of options and control mechanisms through law and policy, the organisations in question also have a line of strategies to deploy in order to temper control.

The book is based on Dr. Geeraert’s PhD thesis and is published through The European Union in International Affairs series.

Geeraert is also the author of the Sports Governance Observer that was published in October 2015, and identified serious governance deficiencies in international sport. The Sports Governance Observer is a bench-marking tool that measures governance standards in four main dimensions: transparency, democratic process, checks and balances, and solidarity.