The thesis analyses the amateur game of rugby union by focussing upon the struggles for control between national and local unions and players. Using historical material and interviews with administrators, current players in the New Zealand national team, the All Blacks, and Canterbury, a local provincial union, I show how the game of rugby union consolidated as the national game. I follow these actors through the shift to a global professional game sponsored by television networks and show how the local advantages in the New Zealand game come to be reconfigured in this context.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of British Columbia, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 299-308).

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / It is widely accepted that sport has the potential to serve as a tool for development as well as a catalyst for social and personal change. The National Department of Sport and Recreation (SRSA) has recognized the role that sport can play in building a better society in its recently published document the National Sport and Recreation Plan(NSRP). The aim of this study was to analyse the implementation of the NSRP in the Western Cape and to develop options for the improvement of the implementation of the National Sport and Recreation Plan in the Western Cape. The study analysed the factors that are necessary for an enabling environment to be successful to create an active and winning nation. By linking policy to implementation the study showed that the social benefits of sport can be extended to the broader social community. The fieldwork research was conducted with sport councils, sport federations, academy officials and senior government officials. The study found that the links between local, provincial and national government must be strengthened. The study further found that the level of commitment amongst the various spheres of government is not the same. The will may be there but the actual resources that must be committed is not readily made available. An important finding was that there appeared to be a lack of a nationally coordinated dedicated unit to champion the NSRP within SRSA. No reporting mechanism exists that will indicate to the general public and sport fraternity what the level of compliance is with the broad requirements of the NSRP. The 5-C protocol was used to analyse the NSRP and its current implementation within the Western Cape. Communication was considered as a future addition to augment the5-C protocol. The alignment between various national, provincial and local spheres of government was found to be lacking. It is recommended that the NSRP be brought into the annual performance plans, strategic plans, medium term expenditure framework and performance agreements of departments and senior management. It was found that the voluntary nature of organisations may act as a hindrance to the implementation of the NSRP. It is foreseen that the outcome of the study will assist in benchmarking best practices for implementation. The recommendations proposed by this study will provide options for laying the foundation for the successful implementation of the National Sport and Recreation Plan in South Africa.

Sports combined with school have become a part of Swedish society. National Sport Education gives students at secondary school an opportunity to combine school and sports to prepare for both a post-athlete career and current elite sport career. The purpose of this study is to increase knowledge about the sports background of the girls and their motive to study National sport Education. At what extent do the girls feel they had the opportunity to combine sport and education but also how does the girls see their future in sports and if their perception of a sports career has changed during their education.All the data have been collected by a quantitative survey that we sent out to all 301 girls who are final year students at National Sport Education specialized in football in Sweden. 51 girls answered the survey. The results show that the girls overall are satisfied with their education at National Sports Education and thinks the arrangements are good. According to the girls’ thoughts, the goals and expectations of the Swedish Football Association are considered a few of them are achieved. What can be understood after this survey is that girls have great ambitions overall and want to invest more in their football career. Most girls want to continue playing football in some way after high school, with a combination of jobs or studies to have something to fall back on after completing their sports career.

This diploma thesis should contribute to the study of leisure time activities since the middle of the last century. The object of this thesis is history of Sokol Skittles team Kolín. Research was made with the method of oral history interviewing eleven narators. Attention is focused in particular from the sixties to the seventies of the last century, when the members successfully represented Czechoslovakia in international competitions. There are two scopes to the research, regarding sport achievements and the preception of narators.

L'objectif principal de la thèse est de comprendre comment se construit la politique sportive d'une fédération sportive nationale. Le cas de la Fédération Française de Rugby (FFR) est étudié sous la forme d'une Recherche-Intervention, cette organisation ayant souhaité engager des réflexions autour de sa politique sportive, un objet qu'il a fallu appréhender et conceptualiser dans le cadre d'une fédération nationale. Cet objet est envisagé comme un processus de co-construction, entre des acteurs fédéraux (siège) et territoriaux (structures décentralisées et déconcentrées). Pour étudier ce processus et notamment les logiques d'acteurs, nous avons mobilisé la théorie de la traduction (Akrich et al., 2006), associée au concept de rapport de prescription (Oiry, 2012). La théorie de la traduction évoque la notion d'actants, pour désigner ces acteurs et prendre en considération des éléments de l'organisation dits « non-humains » (actants non-humains), qui ont aussi une influence et un impact sur ce processus. Notre problématique centrale est ainsi formulée comme suit : quelles sont les dynamiques actantielles à l'oeuvre dans la co-construction d'une politique sportive fédérale ? L'idée générale, au travers de notre cadre d'analyse, est d'exprimer comment ces acteurs, par le biais de leurs visions et de leurs perceptions (leurs traductions) et leurs collaborations/confrontations (leurs rapports de prescription), vont coconstruire la politique sportive fédérale en question. Cette thèse ambitionne d'appréhender à la fois l'intégration de cette politique dans l'organisation fédérale, et la formation d'un réseau d'acteurs qui, parallèlement, se configure et se stabilise. / The main purpose of this thesis is to understand how a national association sport policy is elaborated. The case of the French Rugby Union (FFR) is studied as part of an intervention-research, as this organisation initiated some reflections around its sport policy, an object that we had both to apprehend and conceptualise. This object is considered as a co-construction process, between national and regional actors. In order to study this, we mobilise the Actor-Network Theory (Akrich et al., 2006), associated with the concept of prescriptive relation (Oiry, 2012). The Actor-Network Theory (also known as the sociology of translation) highlights the presence of both human and non-human actors which can have an impact on this process. In this way, our research question is: what are the actors' dynamics during the co-construction process of the federal sport policy? The general idea, throughout our framework, is to express how the (human) actors, thanks to their representations (their translation) and their collaboration / confrontation (their prescriptive relation) are going to co-construct the federal sport policy. The aim of this thesis is to apprehend both the integration of this sport policy into the federal organisation (the FFR) and the creation of an actor-network, which, simultaneously, is configuring and stabilising itself.

This dissertation explores governance of national sports organizations (NSOs) in the Czech Republic and thus reflects contemporary course of events in the Czech sport. The aim of the dissertation is to explore governance of Czech NSOs with special focus on governance structure and transparency. Particularly, the dissertation examines compliance of Czech NSOs with codes of good governance and determines relations between governance structure, transparency and effectiveness of Czech NSOs. Mixed method approach was used in equal status sequential design (QUANT -> QUAL) Firstly, content analysis of websites of 67 Czech NSOs was conducted. The analysis allowed to determine the level of transparency and also provided variables for quantitative part of the study. Purposive sampling was used to choose nine NSOs where subsequent interviews with a CEO or a head of the board were done. And finally, quantitative data survey was conducted in 67 NSOs using phone interviews and e-mail survey. The quantitative data were processed using MS Excel and SPSS and, hypotheses were tested using standard statistical tests. The results are presented in three chapters. First, applicability of five elementary approaches to effectiveness is presented and combination of goal attainment and system resource approach is implemented. Second, governance structure of NSOs is analysed revealing substantially higher variability of governance models in comparison with theoretical presumptions. Moreover, a new framework of governance structure classification was developed. Third, transparency was identified as the most notable principal. Results reveal very low level of the transparency within Czech NSOs and explore the sources and impact of low transparency. For instance, more transparent NSOs are more effective using system resource approach. Overall, the dissertation provides a new deep insight into Czech NSOs governance and brings numerous recommendations for Czech NSOs.