The dominant tool for sport policy makers ignores how majority of Europeans play sports

For decades, European institutions have championed a vision of sport built on solidarity: a pyramid in which revenue from elite competitions at the top flows down to community clubs and local pitches at the bottom, binding the layers together in a mutually beneficial ecosystem.

A new research report, released in February 2026, argues that this vision – known as the European Sport Model (ESM) – does not match reality. Most importantly, millions of physically active European citizens are overlooked if policy makers base their priorities on the image of a pyramid.  

The study has been carried out by Play the Game as part of an EU-financed project named “The Real European Sport Model” led by the International Sport and Culture Association (ISCA).

The researchers examined fifty years of policy documents, academic literature, and recent financial data from sports federations across Europe and reached a clear conclusion: the European Sport Model does not capture how the majority of Europeans actually organise or experience sport.

"The current European Sport Model does not present a cohesive framework that is representative of the depth and breadth of the realities of the organisation of and participation in sporting activity in Europe," the authors write.

Researchers propose the Relational European Sporting Map as an alternative

Instead of depicting sport as a pyramid, lead author Layne Vandenberg from Play the Game, working with Olivier Riquier and Antoine Noël Racine from Université Côte d’Azur, have drawn a map with a number of overlapping circles which illustrate 12 ways in which physically active Europeans organise and practise their sport.

The researchers call the map the Relational European Sporting Map, or RESM. Instead of starting with federations and institutions, it starts with sporting activity itself and recognises 12 different profiles for how people are active, from the lone runner on a home treadmill to the club athlete who depends on public pitches, private gyms, and federation support at the same time.

The framework was tested in a pilot survey with 100 participants, and the researchers say every sporting activity described to them could be mapped onto one of the 12 profiles. The goal is to give individuals and organisations a tool to better describe – and argue for –  their own needs.

"This new report challenges some of the long-standing myths in the sports sector,” says ISCA President Mogens Kirkeby.

“It helps to provide a more accurate picture for decisionmakers who want to understand sports participation in Europe from a citizens' perspective. Because sports participation is declining, many citizens do not benefit from the social, mental and physical advantages of an active lifestyle”.

High-profile sports are not redistributing their wealth to grassroots

Although the study does not identify how the money flows in European sport, it does make some notable findings regarding a key argument among those who support a pyramid concept. The ESM rests on the premise that wealthy, high-profile sports will redistribute their income to grassroots clubs and community sport. The data tells a different story.

In the 2023/24 season, UEFA – European football's governing body – generated 6.8 billion euros in revenue. Of that, only 0.2%, or around 13.75 million euros, was mandated to reach grassroots sport.

A look at five Danish national sports federations reveals an even starker picture.  Once public subsidies are disregarded, four out of the five federations had reverse money streams taking money from the grassroots to finance activities at the top. Without government money, the solidarity mechanism largely collapses.

The key concepts in ESM are little more than abstract ideas

One of the report's central findings is that even the six basic concepts that have underpinned the ESM since the start  – autonomy, open competition, pyramid, solidarity, values, and voluntarism – have changed so dramatically over the past five decades that they no longer mean what they once did.

In contrast, the goals that matter most to ordinary citizens – ideas like health, inclusion, and accessibility – have stayed relatively consistent in the policy debates, but typically unrelated to the definition of the ESM.

The research also finds that most of the ESM's six key features remain little more than abstract ideas. They are concepts without real mechanisms to put them into practice, and without reliable ways to measure whether they are working.

The authors are candid that a further barrier to progress is the lack of transparency in how sports bodies report their finances. Without common data standards, tracking money through the system is close to impossible, making evidence-based policy extremely difficult to design.

The research concludes with a call for a more inclusive conversation about Europe's sporting future – one that brings together not just the sports federations, but public authorities, private actors, and civil society groups, to build a model that actually reflects the activities of the millions of Europeans it claims to represent.