Non-Western countries are now hosting the majority of sport’s mega-events. The biggest events are leaving Europe and North America and challenging the West’s traditional dominance. Prestige and profile are the driving forces behind this shift towards new countries and regimes.

“Clean Games Inside and Outside of the Stadium" (Jogos Limpos) is a joint initiative between UN Global Compact and the Brazilian Ethos Institute of Business and Social Responsibility aiming at monitoring public spending and irregularities in relation to the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics which will both take place in Brazil.

By donating expensive stadia, China is trying to increase its influence in third world countries.

At the International Handball Federation’s (IHF) congress starting today in Morocco, participants will be voting on a new set of by-laws. Former IHF official Christer Ahl describes the new by-laws as autocratic and centralistic and urges delegates to vote against them.

"If you think that a ball game is merely a game about a ball, you may have got it wrong. Sport as a whole is an intense, never-ending battlefield about the values that guide our lives," Jens Sejer Andersen, International Director at Play the Game states in this article. In the article he also looks into whether the ethical standards for sport are higher than for other cultural phenomena.

It may seem unfair that sport more than any other cultural phenomenon must constantly explain its human and social values. There are however some very good reasons to demand a little more from sport than from other activities.

A very succesful opening round for abstract submissions and the late addition of a new theme have led the Play the Game 2011 programme organisers to open a new call for papers. They are encouraging academics, journalists, sports practitioners and other sports stakeholders to send in presentation proposals to the conference by 16 May 2011, 15:00 CET.

A series of incidents in countries like Greece, Romania, Russia and Serbia involving maltreatment of football players, such as non-payment, violent attacks and racism, have led FIFPro to take action in the area.