Many of the sector’s susceptibilities to abuse stem from sport organisations’ insistence on autonomy in all areas, including ones that don’t affect core sporting functions. Resistance to external regulation and investigation means many operate with wide margins of discretion in their decision-making. Consequently, few have taken steps toward meaningfully changing their systems, cultures and male-dominated hierarchies.
Lack of reform has concentrated power in the hands of men over decades. The resulting sexist and hyper-masculine environments provide fertile ground for “old boys’ clubs” that protect the status quo. This ensures that men in power can exploit vulnerable people and expect their peers to ignore abuse or even help conceal it.
The widespread culture of silence in the sport sector also persists because sport organisations are often more concerned with protecting their reputation than meeting the needs of victims/survivors or learning from their mistakes.
The nature of coach/athlete relationships, which are frequently characterised by dependency and unclear boundaries, carries specific risks for sexual abuse. Close physical and emotional contact is common and often largely unsupervised, which provides opportunities for abuse to go undetected. Athletes are conditioned to tolerate abuse and to put the well-being of the team above their own so abuse tends to go goes unreported.
When athletes do speak up, they are often treated with distrust or contempt, and may face retaliation. This can take the form of mistreatment, threats and exclusion from teams and important events.
Our research identifies the weaknesses in sport organisations’ systems that make long -term sextortion possible. Many have failed to develop adequate internal prevention, detection and reporting mechanisms for abuse. Reporting mechanisms tend to lack independence and do not give people safe, trusted opportunities to inform organisations about concerns.
There’s often a lack of capacity and expertise to detect and investigate reports of abuse, with the parties accused in many cases either being senior leaders of the organisations or the abuse happening under their watch. This brings into question the extent to which those tasked with investigating and sanctioning complaints can act independently from their employers or superiors.
