Vassil Girginov: Sustainable Sport – An Impossible Theorem?

Professor Vassil Girginov embarks on a journey to explore the sustainability of the current model of sport. For centuries, societies have struggled to ensure equal access to sport due to its perceived health, social, and economic benefits. Yet, by turning the practice of sport into a human right and its purported benefits into a norm and a relatively cheap policy option to tackle a range of welfare issues, have we set ourselves on an impossible mission and set of expectations?

Growth is a key constitutive word in the strategies of national and international sport organisations worldwide as they aspire to increase participation, medals, and revenue. However, with growth come enhanced levels of complexity due to increased interactions between participants, the environment, and sport providers, as well as the need to use an ever-greater supply of natural resources. This quest for growth occurs in parallel with a rising awareness about sustainability. Sustainable sport is concerned with a composite problem posed by the tensions between the unfettered advancement of its current model and the need for its sustainable development.

In this lecture Professor Girginov explores the tensions between sustainability and growth and argues that the most pertinent challenge facing sustainable sport practices is an ideological one, concerning the overlaying of a sustainability veneer over the growth model of sport. In turn, this serves as a distraction from the fundamental need to think in new ways about sport.

Professor Girginov hopes you will join him for a drinks reception after his lecture.

Free of charge and open to all