Cases

Departments that work next to each other, not together

Coaching, medical, strength and conditioning, analysis and management are all in the building, and each does good work. But they rarely sit in the same room. Information stays where it starts, and one department's view usually decides. Trust between departments is thin, some are favoured over others, nobody shares responsibility, and good people leave.

Published research describes the same pattern: adding more specialists can create an illusion of integration while the specialists still work in silos.

Saying one thing, doing another

We keep winning, so nobody asks how.

Success can hide problems. In one published review, concerns about culture and behaviour were known for years and were not made a priority while the results kept coming.

Ask three leaders what we stand for and you get three answers.

Leaders disagreed about whether the stated way of working still held in practice, and little attention went to people's development beyond performance.

People do not feel able to raise a concern.

Independent reviews have found sports where welfare was not at the centre and the community felt unable to speak up. Staff knew where to complain and feared doing so, and athletes often did not know the routes existed.

How it is built

One part of the organisation runs almost on its own.

It has its own budget and its own decisions, and the board hears from it only when it needs something. In the published case, the funder had encouraged exactly this.

A key person left, and nobody had planned for it.

No succession plan was in place, and the arrangement that followed left decision-making unclear.

The people whose job it is to check were left out.

A review of a major final found that the event owner had sidelined its own safety unit, and that planning leaned on a different, smaller event as its model.

Warnings that go unheard

The survey told us, and we did not act.

In one published case, the share of athletes who said morale was high fell from 86% to 66% in a single year, and little weight was given to it.

We were told what to fix, and most of it never happened.

An earlier report's hard conclusions about behaviour were not acted on. Only a few people saw the full report, and staff came to feel that raising issues achieved nothing.

We have been reviewed before, and there will be another.

A study of national sport organisations found that they respond to independent reviews both purposefully and passively, and that one review can lead to another.

People

Our coaches are wearing down, and we only notice late.

A 2026 study of one high-performance coach found that strain grew gradually and was treated as normal. It links this to how responsibility is structured in high-performance sport.

Young players leave just as they reach the senior level.

A 2026 study of elite handball described this as a pattern shaped by structure, by continuity in the organisation and by competitive pressure.

Athletes hide injuries.

A review of health systems in high-performance sport says that failing to build a culture in which athletes can disclose injuries could itself be considered a form of abuse.

Nobody wants to run the club.

A study by a grassroots sport charity found that volunteers are held back by administrative red tape and the demands of full-time work. Too few people are willing or able to share board and management roles.

Ownership, money and data

Supporters are asking whether it is still their club.

Severe financial distress at a number of English football clubs, together with pressure from fans about governance and ownership, led the government to create a statutory regulator.

Nobody is sure who owns the data we collect on athletes.

Wearable data feeds decisions about training, selection and transfers, while legal ownership of that data remains uncertain.