Where is the implementation in sport policy and programme analysis? The English Football Association's Charter Standard as an illustration

Abstract

Although there is an abundance of research into sports programmes and policies that inherently discuss implementation, most fail to explicitly address this phenomenon, nor do they consider theories and concepts associated with implementation evident in social and political sciences. It is contended that to ignore such a vital process may limit or constrain knowledge of not only how and why sport policies and programmes have been implemented, but also how we come to make assumptions and propositions as to their impacts and relative successes or failures. This article seeks to encourage the incorporation, generation and innovation of existing implementation theories, concepts and models into the sport policy analysis lexicon. It is hoped that this will not only generally broaden the sport policy analysis research agenda, but specifically generate and develop a theoretically informed literature on the practice of sport policy and programme implementation to enhance sport policy students, academics and policymaker's knowledge of the implementation process. To illustrate this, following a critique of top-down/bottom-up and synthesized models, this article applies Matland's (1995) model of conflict and ambiguity to The Football Association's Charter Standard Scheme. This article concludes by suggesting that Matland's (1995) model is a potential way forward for analysing case study-specific sport policy and programme implementation analyses.