In recent years, rich Muslim countries have won many politically attractive hosting rights for international sporting events. But, Israeli athletes pay a high price for this development.

While the recently initiated French investigtion into Japanese Olympic head Tsunekazu Takeda and his alleged corruption is unlikely to affect the Games themselves, it has not reflected well on Takeda.

Crossing the Atlantic for the first time, the 11th edition of the Play the Game conference sets the athletes center stage. Join them and other leading stakeholders in debates on sports governance, corruption and crime, safeguarding of athletes, the future of anti-doping and other vital issues in sport. Bring your ideas, solutions and expertise to Play the Game 2019 in Colorado Springs (CO), USA, from 13-16 October.

In a new report, ASOIF lines out recommendations for sports bodies on how to answer to the radical changes that they face today and in the future.

The world of sport is better off with WADA in it than without it, says former WADA president Dick Pound in an interview with Danish newspaper, looking back at achievements and disappointments from the first 20 years of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The Danish Parliament reinforces Play the Game’s international efforts to fight corruption and promote democracy and good governance in sports organisations through a special grant of 100,000 euro.

WADA has decided to maintain RUSADA compliance in spite of the Russian anti-doping agency failing to meet the deadline for providing access to the Moscow lab data. Observers urge that focus be kept on Russian compliance.

WADA has announced that the data, that its expert group went to Russia to obtain, has been retrieved. The data from the Moscow lab will now be brought to WADA’s HQ in Montreal, Canada, for authentication.

Can soccer play an independent role in bringing nations together, asks James M. Dorsey in this article that discusses sport’s ability to build bridges and turn foes into friends.

There is an old saying that doping is an intelligence test – only the stupid get caught. This might be so, but we should also question the intelligence of followers and fans of sports every time they get surprised when new doping scandals occur.

There is no single global anti mega-event movement. There is, however, a globalized way of protesting against mega-events that adapts to local conditions, and anti-Olympic protesting is a ‘new normal’. This is how researchers John Lauermann and Dennis Pauschinger sum up the article series on public protests and mega-events.

Although anti-Olympics activists face an uphill struggle against Olympic intransigence, Jules Boykoff points to areas that could help convert the many moments of anti-Games activism into a full-throttle movement. This is the sixth article in a series looking into protests and the Games.

The historical roots and deeper conditions of the 'demonstrations cup' in Brazil in 2013 are essential for the understanding of the movement’s consequences, says Erick Omena. In this essay, he looks into the genealogy of the public protests in Brazil leading up to the FIFA Confederations Cup, the first of three mega sporting events held in the country from 2013-2016.

American cities have not had much tradition for anti-Olympic movements in spite of a series of Olympic bids in recent years. This might be changing, writes Greg Andranovich and Matthew J. Burbank in this article that analyses the current anti-Olympic movement in Los Angeles, which is based on public awareness and social justice.

Through an evaluation of Hamburg’s referendum for the 2024 Games, this third article in a series about civil society, contestation, and the Games examines the role of citizen participation and discusses some of the reasons why the NOlympia campaign gained so much resonance in the city and outside Germany.

Sporting events in Russia are directly linked to the formation of a new Russian national idea and identity under Putin’s rule and have become an important tool in forming the narrative of the nation and establishing a meaningful relationship between the past, present and future, writes Stanis Elsborg in this analysis on sport and identity in Russia.

This second article in our series on civic contestation of mega-events looks to Russia and the protests that have played out here in spite of the efforts by authorities to stifle and suppress popular resistance.

In this first introductory article, Dennis Pauschinger from the University of Neuchâtel and John Lauermann from the City University of New York discuss similarities and differences of the various movements that have arisen and discuss whether it is a global movement, or rather a locally founded ‘globalised way of protesting the World Cup and the Olympics’.