Sport should be a living democracy between elections

Dear guests from so many countries of the world - dear friends.

It is an honour for me to be present here today to speak at the opening of the international press seminar “Sport, Media and Civil Society” on the occasion of the centenary of the weekly sports magazine of the Danish Gymnastics and Sports Associations.

Allow me briefly to give you an outline of Danish sport before embarking on the issue of democracy in sport, which is what I really intend to talk to you about.

Sport in Denmark belongs to the non-governmental sector and is largely based on voluntarism. Despite substantial public support the freedom and independence of sports organizations, federations, associations and clubs are respected by the public authorities. The enormous amount of voluntary work in the thousands and thousands of clubs in our country is regarded as a great value in our democracy.

The public sector to a large extent provides the framework for sporting activities, and the sports movement is responsible for filling in the framework by creating and managing the sports activities on the local, regional and national level. 

The sports sector in Denmark is highly decentralized with the main accent on sport for all. The exception is the elite sport institution Team Danmark, where the efforts and support on the top performance level are centralized.

Sport in Denmark is financed partly by sport itself - clubs, federations, organizations - partly by local authorities, and partly by funds derived from public betting, football pools and lotteries. The profits from these gambling activities are by law allocated to various cultural activities, among which the 3 national sports organizations feature prominently. In principle the independent sports organizations dispose freely of this money according to their authonomy.

The public support to the main sports organizations derived from gambling has more than doubled over the past decade. This has been due to a sharp increase in the revenue from a new national lottery introduced in 1989.

I am currently engaged in a dialogue with the main sports organizations trying to emphasize my wish to see these organizations devote part of these extra funds to activities that underline their social awareness and expand this awareness in new and exciting directions according to the needs of modern society.

I am confident that over the coming months the sports organizations and I will reach a common understanding on this issue.

After this brief introduction I shall now turn to the theme of democracy in sport.

It can be quite difficult to convince people that sports associations contribute to democracy simply because the world of sport often signals lack of interest in the democratic process. 

The mass media accentuates sport’s confidence and faith in the strong man almost daily. The trainer is projected incessantly as a person with dictatorial authority while athletes meekly accept that they can have no real influence on their situation. The trainer is worshipped as the absolute power.

The most powerful organ within sport – The International Olympic Committee – appears devoid of any democratic traits. It is a co-opting committee whose activities are deprived of any form of democratic structure or control. And if we look at the general assemblies of the many thousand sports associations and clubs around our country, we find that attendance is often low, the debate thin, elections marked by lack of willingness among members to assume the duties of leadership, while young people under 18 years of age are often denied the right to vote.

A survey of the organisational structure of sport, presented by The Sports Confederation of Denmark on the occasion of its 100th anniversary, maintains that democracy in sports organisations is perceived as having outlived its usefulness. “Formal structures and democratic processes are increasingly taking on an air of ritual”.

So the scepticism we meet, on the face of it at least, is readily understood. 

When I wrote in the government’s sports policy report – which was debated in Parliament on the 20th of March this year – that “the tradition of forming associations is an essential element of Danish democracy”, that “associations and clubs offer important opportunities for the development of democracy as a way of life” and that “it is very important for children and young people to learn that they can organise themselves democratically thereby creating the framework for their own development”, there could well be need for elaboration.

It is part of the Danish self-image to consider the establishing of associations, which took off at the end of the last century in connection with the social upheaval of the day, “a cradle of democracy”. These associations gave practical schooling in democratic methods and represented a new way of organising the political process. For commoners, peasants and workers the association was the ideal forum for manifesting the social ideas the three groups had been fighting for individually while at the same time representing an effective cooperation type for social renewal. The Danish peasant movement and its establishment of a triad of Folk High Schools, associations and co-operatives stand as a symbol of political development in which sport, in the form of gymnastics, held a central position under the watchword “the whole person”. 

Today, the democratic decision-making process is a natural part of the consciousness of most people. An understanding of democracy as the structural basis of Danish society is established early in life. However, associations represent but one area where the individual can be introduced to the democratic concept. In associations democracy is perceived primarily as a practical regulations-determined form of cooperation that seldom unfolds as anything more than the formal procedures of electing leaders and delegating responsibility. Agreement or consensus is normal in associations and any conflict that may arise manifests itself in resignations and the formation of new associations, rather than in intensely negotiated settlements.

The importance of associations to democracy lies elsewhere. It is not so much the formal democratic structures that are of interest, but rather, life between elections. Association is a method by which democratically minded citizens today obtain  an opportunity to express their need for closeness and reciprocity and to meet in spite of cultural and national borders. In local interaction in activity, the individual is offered an opportunity to express the engagement that is bound up with a desire to be a respected part of a social community. This “living democracy” has held sway in the Danish understanding of democracy from its roots in the Danish tradition of the last century to the labour and grassroots movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In reality it can be said, in the words of the above mentioned survey undertaken by the Danish Sports Confederation, that “local democracy does not live in the so-called democratic structures furthered by sporting organisations as a form of living anachronism. Local democracy lives, in spite of our democratic traditions, in the activist-based community and in the love the individual has for being together with others”.

Approached from the ideal perspective, associations are characterized by such concepts as solidarity, reciprocity, personal initiative and the formulation of ideas. They are neither business nor public institutions. They appeal to volunteering, engagement and duty. And although associations are seldom found in their pure form, not only because they are heavily dependent on public subsidies but also because they think in marketing and customer service terms, there remains a basic feeling of solidarity among members on the solution of projects. The members are fundamentally responsible. This concept of responsibility is the crucial point in the modern idea of democracy. The democrat must be aware of his or her responsibility for the whole. The majority must not just decide everything. The majority must guarantee the rights of “the others” by creating opportunities for dissimilarities to unfold - from the local to the global level. In an international perspective sport offers an opportunity to meet in spite of cultural, religious and linguistic differences. In fact, we have seen many examples where sport has broken down such barriers and initiated a new direction in international relations.

Consequently, solidarity in an association can be manifested as responsibility for the whole, which each individual is part of. However, solidarity can lead to such a perception of the group’s self-sufficiency that it results in exclusivity. The whole, which the association is part of, will often be a local community; and association solidarity should extend to accommodating developmental opportunities for people finding themselves on the periphery of society. One could say that the price of receiving public funding is in fact such a sense of responsibility. Exclusivity, manifested in the form of lack of openness and awareness of the needs of the local community, is not acceptable.

When I, in the government´s sports policy report, encourage sports associations to be aware of the need to supply sporting facilities for the elderly, refugees and immigrants, socially deprived young people, the unemployed and others who temporarily or permanently lack the energy necessary to apply for membership of an association or club, it is because such efforts lie in the extension of the modern concept of democracy. Sport occupies a central position in the consciousness and leisure pursuits of children and young people. This offers sport an obvious opportunity to inspire the form of solidarity and responsibility inherent in democracy.

This is what is politically expectated of today’s sports associations.

And these expectations should not allow themselves to  be cowed either by the provoking exclusivity of The International Olympic Committee or the image of the trainer portrayed in the media, which implies that only the strong have a say in the matter.