INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

strong link between the government and the sport system, are
experiencing cutbacks of public funding due to increasing economic
pressure on different stakeholders, respectively resource gatekeepers
(Bernards and Busse 2000, Digel 2003, Ferrari et al. 2003, Heinemann
2003, Puig et al. 2003, Tapsell 1999)
Facing, at the same time, significant increases in the resources
needed (e.g. due to increasing equipment, training facility and sport
medicine standards) to keep in touch with the performance
development, e.g. at today’s Olympics, this creates the critical
resource problem mentioned earlier (Digel 2003, Tapsell 1999).
In such a situation facing on the one hand maybe stagnating,
perhaps even decreasing but at least not guaranteed resource supply
and being on the other hand confronted with increasing amounts of
resources needed to create successful athletes, stressing the
importance of management efficiency while running an elite sport
system becomes much more important. Following the management
principle of rationality, efficiency is thereby to be seen as the
maximisation of a specific output based on a given input (pp. 1, Wöhe
and Dörner 2002) - or in terms of the management of an elite sport
system, it is to maximise the achieved sporting success based on the
resources available.
4. Summary and Forecast
Most western societies have publicly supported mass and elite
sport systems, even though these vary in the depth of the relationship
between the sport and the governmental sector as well as the
organizational designs, management professionalism, effectiveness
and efficiency.
This broad variety among the national solutions can thereby be
traced back to the variation of the general national backgrounds as
well as the specific stakeholder structures such systems which are
embedded in (e.g. Houlihan 1997), four major common findings:
Firstly, when running an elite sport system one must bear in mind
that the elite sport level is only one element of a holistic and
interdependent structure. Gaining consistent sporting success on the
international stage is in the long run only achievable when based on a
mature mass sport background.
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