Dubai will roll out the welcome mat for sport’s leading administrators and their growing retinue of advisors, commercial partners, strategists and suppliers when the SportAccord Convention arrives in town in the last week of April.
And nobody will be awaiting the event more eagerly than Her Royal Highness Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein of Jordan, for whom it represents a convergence of several interests.
Princess Haya, who is married to Dubai’s ruler, is both the president of the SportAccord convention Local Organising Committee and one of the most influential and energetic heads of an international sports federation.
An international show jumper who competed for Jordan at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, Princess Haya is president of the Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI), which she has set about transforming since her election in 2006.
Today she remains the only woman at the head of an international Olympic sports federation and a passionate advocate of inclusivity in sport, particularly among children.
She is also a natural advocate of the potential role of the Gulf region in world sport and believes SportAccord’s visit to Dubai will be mutually beneficial.
“Hosting this event can help this region find its place in the world of global sport,” she says. “The timing is perfect for the international sport community to be exposed to the decision-makers in this region, and vice versa. We both benefit from that exposure and build new partnerships based on mutual respect. Doing that will benefit the world of sport and the people of this region.”
Even before here election, Princess Haya was committed to the notion of change for better governance in sport and nothing has altered in the intervening years to change that view.
“Sports governing bodies are responding to the same pressures that affect all institutions. There is a growing demand for better governance in the world of sport, just as there is in the business world. Financial pressures and changes in communication are also forcing change,” she says.
“Sports organisations have tended to be inward looking. It is easy to get caught up in internal politics. The move towards good governance and transparency helps keep the focus where it should be - on serving the sport and the athletes.
“As we bring more professionalism to sport governance, we also have to respect traditions and the unique aspects of the sport family. We have to continue to value the people who built the sport under previous governance structures as we modernise those structures. We need more statesmanship and less politics.”
The clamour for greater professionalism in governance has never been louder. While the opening of new media channels offers sports exciting new communications opportunities, there is a clear imperative to adopt new and more creative approaches to generating revenue from all sources.
Princess Haya believes that changes in communication are both a challenge and an opportunity. “Sport governing bodies exist to serve athletes, and I think we all share the goal of bringing young people into our sports.
There is a growing recognition that we have to be more creative and more nimble in how we communicate. Athletes, and certainly young people, are often ahead of us in sharing the kind of information that we should be providing.
“All of it boils down to a focus on service. The sports that have seen the biggest growth, like cricket, have made big investments in infrastructure and human resources that have a direct benefit to the sport.”
The FEI itself may be seen as a case study of change in sports governance. Change has, says Princess Haya, been profound and sometimes painful but significant progress has been made.
For the full interview, please see the latest issue of SportBusiness International out April 1.
