Call to corporatise sporting federations
SPORTING federations need to shift from a volunteer-run organisations to corporate-run institutes.
Prominent physiotherapist and former athlete Cathy Wong highlighted this after the Pacific Corporate Governance Institute Workshop in Suva from October 7-9.
“Within the sporting federation, we have about 49 sporting federations in Fiji and also within the Oceania region our 22 member countries,” she said.
“Governance has been a major issue, our compliance with governance has not really been on par with the corporate sector and sports has been becoming a major contributor to the economy.”
Ms Wong, who serves on various sporting boards, added that people and organisations had to be held accountable for the money they received from Government, sponsors and even the public.
“We need to move the sporting federation from a volunteer-run organisation.
“We can still be volunteer-run but you need to corporatise your organisational structure to make sure people are accountable, they report back to their stakeholders and their shareholders and, in this case, even if it’s an association your shareholders are your members too.”
She added the Companies Act 2015 only covered companies that were registered and sporting organisation in Fiji were not.
“They don’t fall under the Companies Act, there is no associations Act in this country so there is this big black hole that they have been lumped into.
“This was highlighted a couple of years ago and we are working behind the scenes with Peter Mazey and the sports commission to see where we can put the sporting organisations to make sure they are held accountable and that they run as a professional organisation.
“It’s still work in progress and we are dealing with the legal counsel and the laws of Fiji, looking at where we fit in, suggestion have been to corporatise and sports that have corporatised have been the Fiji Rugby Union.”
She said the Fiji Rugby Union used to be a charitable trust, however, now it was a company limited by guarantee.
“So the bigger sporting federations are now moving to corporatisation and it has made a huge significant difference in the investment.”
“Since Fiji Rugby (Union) moved to company limited by guarantee, the stakeholders and the people who wanted to sponsor them has boomed.”
She added that Fiji Rugby Union was now recording profits after becoming a company limited by guarantee.
According to Ms Wong, when an organisation was open and transparent, sponsors and the public were willing to pour money in. “The investment portfolio multiplies, the value of your product multiplies and Fiji Rugby (Union) is a classic example of how that’s happened.”
She said the same concept could not be applied to other national federations as each case would be different as they were not on the same level.
“We cannot do a blanket rule and it needs to be custom-made and this is where we are working with people behind the scenes to see where we fit this into.
“Under the Companies Act, is there going to be a sub-clause or is it a completely new association Act and that’s the challenge where we sit at and hence my training here at the workshop,” she said.
We can still be volunteer-run but you need to corporatise your organisational structure to make sure people are accountable... – Cathy Wong