International Federation of American Football receives high marks from GAISF

AFI | American Football | 06/17/2019

At the Global Association of International Sports Federations, GAISF, General Assembly in Gold Coast last month, attended by IFAF Executive Board member Chris Josey, GAISF announced the results of its good governance survey to Members and the International Federation of American Football graded extremely well for governance.

In November 2018, the GAISF Council implemented a governance assessment project for those International Federations (IFs) belonging to the Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations (ARISF) and Alliance of Independent Recognised Members of Sport (AIMS) – a group which included IFAF.

Sports governance consultancy I Trust Sport, which worked on similar projects with the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) and the Association of International Olympic Winter Sport Federations (AIOWF), was appointed by GAISF to carry out the project. Analysis of a 20-question, self-assessed survey focusing particularly on transparency as a theme was at the heart of the report.

The questions ranged from policy making and availability of information to the general public, to gender balance and whether IFs had established a code of ethics.Further to the publication of the general report, each sport received individual feedback.

The key findings of the report included:

• IFAF scored significantly higher than the average compared to other IFs with 0 or less than 1 staff
• IFAF scores higher than the average compared to other IFs with under 2m CHF in annual revenue (many of the IFs in this category were substantially under the 2m CHF threshold)
• The IFAF’s self-assessment was quite accurate with a mark-down of 5 in the moderation process compared to an average of 12 across all IFs studied

IFAF President Richard MacLean welcomed the report’s findings:

“I am delighted with the general conclusions drawn from this governance survey and would like to thank our Executive Board and committees for their continued efforts in delivering for our members. The past few years have been very challenging for IFAF. We have had to work hard to move forward, ensuring that we strengthen our federation and set high standards in our work. A number of the key findings stand as testament to our ambition to achieve this.”

“One of the most pleasing aspects was our ability to accurately review our strengths and weaknesses. We know that we have a lot of work still to do but we can be confident that we are heading in the right direction.”