Application of governance principles by sports federations in Kenya

Abstract

While the sports industry continues to grow rapidly and develop as a vibrant and crowd pulling phenomenon, not much has been done to study the important area of governance relating to sports organizations in Kenya. This study therefore sought to address this state of affairs, and specifically to investigate the application of governance principles within these sports organizations. A world Bank review on corporate governance (2000) observes that major corporate failures are often the result of fraud, incompetence and abuse of power and responsibilities and that only through an improved system of governance can organizations address these issues. The study was carried out in Nairobi since all the sports organizations have their headquarters in the city. The primary data used in this study was collected using structured questionnaire and open-ended questions. The questionnaire was administered on a "drop and pick later" basis. About 25 out of 50 organizations responded favourably giving a response rate of 50%. Analysis of data revealed that certain aspects of governance principles were blatantly ignored without reason. For example the auditing of organizational funds was seen to be not important across board, hence was not practiced at all. It is also noted that it was not possible to reach officials of the large and famous sports organizations. Usually they are very busy either in power struggles or in organizing their athletes. The finding of this study suggest the urgent need to implement policy which will compel sports organizations in Kenya to start embracing corporate governance principles.