In early April 2022, UK Sport – the body responsible for allocating Government and National Lottery funds across the high-performance sporting system in the UK – announced the launch of ‘Sport Integrity’, an independent disclosure and complaints service for Olympic and Paralympic sport.
The sports law team at Mills & Reeve LLP was instructed by UK Sport to conceptualise and draft the regulatory framework that forms the backbone of Sport Integrity, which will be operational as a pilot, starting May 2022.
Sport Integrity aims to serve and assist athletes, support personnel and national governing bodies by providing a platform for the reporting and investigation of any unacceptable behaviour - such as bullying, harassment, abuse and victimisation - that might occur within the UK’s high-performance sporting system.
As part of Sport Integrity, Olympic and Paralympic funded athletes, support personnel and governing bodies shall have the ability to make complaints of unacceptable behaviour via a confidential reporting line hosted by the charity, Crimestoppers. Once registered, these complaints would then be investigated by Sport Resolutions, an independent sports specific dispute resolution service, thereby assisting national governing bodies to take appropriate action and uphold the highest standards of conduct in their respective sports. The disclosure and investigation process will be free of charge.
The project is the result of a multi-stakeholder collaboration across all levels of the sports ecosystem including the government, national governing bodies, the British Athletes Commission, UK Coaching, Crimestoppers and of course, Sport Resolutions and UK Sport.
Mills & Reeve is proud to have been associated with the setting up of this project – a first of its kind in the UK and an important initiative towards ensuring that the high performance system in the UK remains exactly that – a safe place for Team GB’s athletes and support personnel to develop and deliver to the best of their abilities.
Partner, Carol Couse and Associate, Rustam Sethna acted for UK Sport on this project.
The project was publicly announced by UK Sport and Sport Resolutions on 7 April 2022, and was subsequently reported on by InsideTheGames, a leading Olympic and Paralympic sport news platform.
For more information, contact:
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