CSR Reporting of Sports Organizations

Abstract

The challenges and the threats to the respect of the ethical principles of sport deriving from the growing economic interests linked to the realization of major events and professional sports practice have made clear the need to undertake a path of social “accountability” by sports organizations. To be “accountable” means not only to respect principles of CSR, but also to adopt external communication tools that give ample qualitative and quantitative information on environmental and social impacts and on governance (ESG). These are documents that, according to circumstances, can take the form of social, environmental, sustainability or integrated reports. In this regard, the sixth chapter shows various types of reports published by sports organizations with different characteristics: from the sustainability report prepared by the organizing committee of the Olympic Games (“PyeongChang 2018 Pre-Games Sustainability Report”) to reports written by the Italian sports federations (the model of the “Social Report of the National Sports Federations” and the Integrated Report of the FIGC) to conclude with the illustration of the sustainability report prepared by a professional football club (“Juventus Football Club Sustainability Report”).