Bidding for international sport events: how government supports and undermines national governing bodies of sport

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Over the last 20 years bidding for the rights to host sport events has become increasingly competitive. While a range of factors underpin successful bids, political support, particularly in the context of bidding for mega sport events such as the Olympics or the FIFA World Cup, is essential. This has resulted in an increasingly politicized bidding process. The role of government policy and the impact on sport-event bidding therefore plays a key role in determining whether a national governing body of sport (NGB) is competitive during the bid process. Two central issues are considered within this article. First, it considers the ways in which the UK government is supportive of NGBs during the bidding process. Second, it focuses specifically on government taxation policy and discusses how the tax environment in the UK has the potential to undermine the competitiveness of UK NGBs when bidding to host sport events. Drawing on semi-structured interview data from 10 individuals representing nine national governing bodies of sport and six other stakeholders involved in the bidding process, the article illustrates that NGBs receive bid support from central government through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, from local government, in addition to non-departmental public bodies including regional development agencies and UK Sport. The interview analysis also illustrates that this support is offset by the adverse impact of income tax and VAT policy of HM Treasury. The article concludes with the identification of four key issues which require further research. First, should HM Treasury introduce legislation to relinquish the right to tax a percentage of worldwide endorsement income from overseas sports people? Second, when bidding for one-off sport events, should HM Treasury provide exemptions from player tax and HMRC guarantee that they will not pursue the tax liability? Third, is there a need for HM Treasury to create a specialist sports events unit, and fourth, should a reduced VAT rate of 5% on spectator entry fees be introduced.