Meet the speakers: “An organisation cannot be deemed ‘safe’ simply because it has adopted a safeguarding policy”

What motivated you to explore the rise of safeguarding?

As part of my doctoral research, I began investigating how international sports federations addressed cases of gender-based violence. I soon realised that this term was, in fact, rarely used by them—or only in very specific contexts. Instead, the notions of safeguarding or safe sport were far more prevalent, appearing in expressions such as safeguarding policies, safeguarding officer, or safe sport framework.  
 
These terms were often left undefined or framed in tautological statements such as “safeguarding aims to make sport safer.” 

When reviewing the first policies developed by international sports federations, I observed that safeguarding frequently operated as a new catch-all term—widely used yet seldom questioned or clearly defined.  

I therefore considered it important to understand the genealogy of this term: its origins, the actors who first employed it, the contexts in which it emerged, and the processes through which it spread. 

What are the findings of your research?

Tracing the history of the term made it possible to identify its emergence and early uses, rooted in nineteenth-century British policy and debates on child protection. This history reveals a dual diffusion process occurring in two main phases.  

First, the term expanded beyond British borders and gained global currency during the twentieth century. Second, at the turn of the twenty-first century, its scope extended beyond the family sphere to other sectors - including humanitarian work and sport - gradually shifting from a focus exclusively on minors to also encompass vulnerable adults and, finally, all participants. 

It is striking to note the way in which international sports organisations embraced this issue after decades of minimising cases of violence within their sports.  

Several key moments can be identified, but a decisive turning point occurred from 2017 onwards, in a context shaped by the #MeToo movement and the Larry Nassar scandal. Some authors have compared the impact of this latter event, in terms of both public awareness and institutional response, to the Festina affair in the fight against doping.  

Previously absent from official documents and public discourse within international federations, the issue of safeguarding spread rapidly across these organisations in a relatively short time, often in a pattern of striking institutional mimicry. 

What are the overall conclusions of your analysis? 

It highlights the emergence and diffusion of the concept of safeguarding within international sport, with the International Olympic Committee playing a particularly significant role, alongside broader international and internal dynamics that gradually compelled federations to engage with the issue.  

Within just a few years, awareness has become widespread, which is undeniably a positive development. Moreover, a number of international sports organisations and their safeguarding leads have undertaken serious, reflective, and well-structured work on the subject, offering potential models for others. 

At the same time, it is essential to maintain a critical perspective on both the term and its use.  

While safeguarding can serve as a strategic framing for addressing systemic violence in sport by adopting a “more positive” approach that incorporates prevention and potentially facilitates more frequent discussion, the term also risks depoliticising and 'hiding'  such violence and the power relations underpinning it.  

In this sense, safeguarding can verge on becoming a form of 'branding', raising the possibility that some organisations engage only superficially. This is a phenomenon that might be described as a new form of washing that we could call  'safewashing'. 

How can sport prevent issues like safeguarding from becoming nothing more than buzzwords? 

 All researchers working on these issues point out the fact that it is crucial to emphasise that safeguarding must be understood as a long-term process. An organisation cannot be deemed “safe” simply because it has adopted a safeguarding policy. Meaningful progress requires sustained human, temporal, and financial investment, along with the necessary expertise to address such cases effectively.  

As with other integrity-related concerns, structural reforms must continue and evolve, and cultural change is absolutely indispensable. Without such cultural transformation, structural measures risk proving ineffective or even counterproductive. 

It also appears essential to develop a process that more directly involves athletes in this area, enabling them to contribute fully to the work and to take ownership of these tools. In other words, the goal is not merely to produce a document or procedure as part of a tick-the-box approach, but rather to ensure that it is accessible and genuinely useful to everyone in case of questions or need. 

Do you have any examples of other popular buzzwords in sport governance? 

Although I have not yet examined other examples in depth, it is always worth interrogating how sports organisations use terms such as inclusion, good governance, or diversity. What do these terms mean in practice? How are they operationalised? And how do organisations ensure they have the means to meet the objectives they set under these headlines?