Decision-Making in International Sports Organizations - a Survey

This paper surveys the literature on decision-making in international sports organizations. The International Olympic Committee, the Federation Internationale de Football Association and many other federations delegate decision-making to internal committees. A complicated structure of those committees that reflects the international status of federations, a unique type of decisions that is inherent to sports industry, and specific decision-making mechanisms attract the researchers' attention. The survey is comprised of four paragraphs. The first paragraph briefly reviews papers aimed at studying preferences of the international sports federations committee members. The second paragraph is devoted to papers that analyze determinants of success of bids for hosting sporting mega-events. In the third paragraph we discuss different ways to fight corruption in decision-making bodies of international sports federations. Finally, we touch on the problem of accountability in international sports federations. The focus of the paper is on the economics literature, and it is not aimed to discuss a wide literature on such topics as management of sport organizations or psychology of decision-making.