Strategy Before Spending: Why Governance Determines Whether Sports Ambition Delivers

National sports strategies rarely fail because they lack ambition. They fail because ambition is not translated into priorities, ownership, measurable targets and consequences.

A government may announce a ten-year vision, a motorsport federation may publish an impressive strategic plan, and a football league may introduce new governance regulations. But unless stakeholders understand who is responsible, how progress will be measured and what happens when targets are missed, strategy remains largely declarative.

The starting point is therefore not the strategy document itself, but four key questions:

1. What is the country ultimately trying to achieve through sport?
2. How will progress and impact be measured?
3. Who has the authority and accountability to deliver each objective?
4. How will governance, compliance and transparency be enforced across the system?

Together, these questions determine whether a strategy becomes an operating system for the sector, or remains a statement of intent. Saudi Arabia provides one of the clearest current examples of a country attempting to answer all four at speed.

Sport creates greater value when it serves a national ambition

Saudi Arabia’s sports transformation did not begin with a standalone sports plan. It began with a national development agenda.

Under Vision 2030, sport is connected to quality of life, public health, tourism, economic diversification, international positioning and private-sector development. This gives the sector something many national sports strategies lack: relevance beyond the sports ministry itself.

That alignment has helped turn sport from a sectoral policy into a cross-government delivery tool. Its contribution can therefore be assessed not only through medals or events, but also through health, participation, tourism and economic outcomes.

The benefits of that alignment are increasingly measurable. In 2025, 59.1% of adults reported completing at least 150 minutes of physical activity per week, exceeding the annual target of 55% and reaching the 2027 target two years early. Among young people aged 5-17, 19% met the recommended 60 minutes of daily activity, compared with a 2025 target of 12%.

Indicator	Baseline	2025 target	2025 result	2030 target
Adults completing 150+ minutes per week	49%	55%	59.1%	64%
Youth completing 60 minutes per day	6%	12%	19%	21%

The figures show both the value and the limits of national averages. Overall participation is progressing strongly, but differences by age could indicate where future programs and investment may need to become more targeted.

Vision 2030 gives sport a role across several government agendas. That breadth creates strategic value, but it also creates a risk of strategic overload. Saudi sport is simultaneously expected to increase participation, improve elite performance, professionalize federations, commercialize clubs, attract investors, host global events and strengthen the country’s international profile.

The test of the strategy is therefore not how many ambitions it contains, but whether it establishes a clear hierarchy between them: Which outcomes are essential national priorities? Which are supporting objectives? Which opportunities should be delayed when institutional capability is insufficient?

Priorities should be assessed against national relevance, expected impact, institutional readiness, cost and the extent to which one investment strengthens several parts of the ecosystem at once.

The lesson for rapidly developing sports systems is not to reduce ambition, but to separate the long-term national vision from the focused delivery strategies required for participation, high performance, commercial development and major events.

What gets counted is not always what creates value

A long-term vision creates direction. It does not automatically create results.

Vision 2030 is supported by Vision Realization Programs, sectoral strategies, phased targets and structured performance management. These mechanisms translate national priorities into coordinated initiatives, investments and measurable results.

Across the wider Vision 2030 agenda, 390 indicators were actively measured in 2025. Of these, 309 had achieved or exceeded their interim targets and another 52 were close to target, meaning that according to the report, 93% had achieved or approached their annual target. The system also tracked 1,290 initiatives, of which 225 had been completed and 935 were on track.

These are not sports-sector results. They show the wider delivery architecture within which sport is being developed: phased targets, identifiable initiatives, regular review and the ability to adjust implementation when required.

Saudi Arabia has also broadened the way it measures sports development. In 2021, the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee launched a federation-support strategy with a reported budget of SAR 2.6 billion, initially covering 54 federations. The evaluation framework covered governance, sporting performance, participation, economic contribution, cultural impact and sports tourism, illustrating how funding and evaluation were linked at the organizational level. By 2022, the program had reported more than 35,000 registered athletes, over 3,500 Saudi coaches and 196 competitions during the relevant reporting quarter.

The 2025 Annual Report, meanwhile, shows the wider scale that Saudi Arabia’s sports ecosystem has reached.

Indicator	Reported scale
Sports federations	97
Sports clubs	133
Full-time club employees	11,100+
Women’s national teams	25
Children in the national talent database	480,000+
Coaches and educators trained	12,000+
Athletes receiving specialized support	950+

These figures demonstrate substantial reach, activity and institution-building. They do not yet prove sustainable impact. A mature measurement system must distinguish between four levels:

• Inputs: funding, personnel and facilities committed
• Activities: programs delivered, competitions organized and coaches trained
• Outputs: participants reached, sessions delivered and athletes assessed
• Impact: participants retained, athletes progressing, health outcomes improving and organizations becoming more sustainable

Governments and federations often stop at activity because it is the easiest level to report. A federation may show that it delivered ten events, trained 100 coaches or registered 1,000 participants. None of these figures alone proves that people remained active, athletes improved or the sport became more sustainable.

The real value of a KPI is not that it appears in an annual report, but that it informs a decision. If participant retention is weak, programs should be redesigned. If athletes are not progressing, funding should shift toward the relevant pathway. If a federation repeatedly misses governance or performance targets, continued support should depend on corrective action.

Measurement becomes meaningful only when evidence changes priorities, funding and organizational behavior.

When everyone is responsible, no one is accountable

Saudi Arabia’s sports ecosystem now includes the Ministry of Sport, the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee, national federations, professional leagues, clubs, the Sports for All Federation, specialist academies, event entities and investment bodies.

The country’s reforms show a deliberate sequence of institutional development. The first phase expanded access and created specialist federations and delivery bodies. The next phase established the Ministry of Sport, Mahd Sports Academy, women’s competitions and federation-development programs. More recently, the focus has expanded to include the Saudi Games, club privatization, sports-management programs, the Esports World Cup, Sports Boulevard and a more formal Sports Law.

This sequencing matters. Participation, talent, high performance, commercialization and regulation have been progressively supported by new institutions, programs and legal frameworks.

Formal mandates are increasingly defined. The Ministry of Sport plays the central role in sector planning, regulation and enablement. The Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee supports Olympic representation and federation development. The Sports for All Federation is a principal delivery body for community participation. Institutions such as Mahd Sports Academy and the Elite Athletes Development Program focus on talent identification and high performance.

The introduction of the Sports Law, social-insurance coverage for Saudi players and coaches, and club privatization indicate a shift towards a more formal operating environment.

That evolution is positive. Mature governance is not static. But every additional institution and program increases the need for explicit decision rights. An organizational chart may show who is involved. It does not necessarily reveal who has the final decision when objectives conflict.

The practical governance test is simple:

For every major objective, is there one clearly identified lead institution, defined supporting roles, transparent decision rights and an agreed escalation process?

Where responsibility is shared but ownership is unclear, coordination problems become the default explanation for underperformance. Accountability determines who must act when delivery falls short. Governance standards determine what happens when that responsibility is not fulfilled.

Governance standards must become conditions, not aspirations

Saudi Arabia has increasingly introduced governance requirements for federations and clubs. Federation assessments have examined strategy, organizational structures, boards, financial management, staffing, technology and performance. Club-support programs have also assessed compliance with administrative and financial standards.

The central question is increasingly not whether standards exist, but how consistently they are assessed and enforced.

A credible governance system requires:

• published and proportionate requirements;
• sufficiently independent assessments;
• comparable results across organizations;
• time-bound remediation plans; and
• consequences for repeated non-compliance.

Those consequences may affect funding, licensing, leadership authority or access to public programs.

Great Britain provides one of the strongest benchmarks in this respect. The Code for Sports Governance links public and National Lottery funding to governance requirements covering organizational structure, board composition, conduct, policies and accountability.

The principle is straightforward: governance requirements should be proportionate to the size and responsibilities of an organization, but public funding should not be unconditional. For Saudi Arabia, the transferable lesson is not the exact structure of the British model, but the principle that public support should be linked to governance maturity, transparent assessment and corrective action.

Saudi Arabia’s federation-support model already moves in this direction by linking funding to a broader set of organizational and performance criteria. The next step is to make clear how assessments influence future allocations, leadership decisions and corrective action.

Capacity-building remains essential, particularly for smaller or newer federations. Organizations cannot be expected to reach leading standards immediately without training, systems and institutional support.

But limited capability cannot indefinitely excuse weak financial controls, conflicts of interest or poor reporting.

Governance is not administrative compliance for its own sake. It protects public investment, improves decisions and creates organizations that athletes, commercial partners and investors can trust.

What Saudi Arabia is getting right

Saudi Arabia demonstrates several characteristics of a rapidly developing sports system, with selected elements moving toward leading practice:

• Sport is embedded within a long-term national transformation agenda
• Objectives extend beyond medals to participation, health, economic development and international positioning
• Vision is supported by delivery programs, phased targets and performance indicators
• Federation and club development increasingly combine funding with organizational and governance requirements
• Talent development is supported through databases, academies, coach education and specialist athlete services
• Legal frameworks and institutional responsibilities are developing alongside investment

Saudi Arabia shows how quickly a sports ecosystem can expand when sport is embedded in a national agenda and supported by significant resources. The next test is whether that expansion translates into sustained institutional maturity and measurable long-term value. The country’s main challenge is no longer a lack of ambition, capital or visible activity. It is ensuring that prioritization, institutional capability, accountability and transparency develop at the same speed.

Strategy determines how far a sports nation wants to go. Governance determines whether activity becomes impact, and whether progress lasts.

The article series and engagement is led by Marc Esterer, Director Business Development, and Alexander Strulak, Strategic Partnerships Advisor & Communications Manager.

Sources: Saudi Vision 2030 (Annual Report 2025); Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee (Federation Support Strategy; federation evaluation and development reporting); UK Sport (A Code for Sports Governance; governance requirements for recipients of public and National Lottery funding).

A. Strulak writes on sports business, commercial strategy and the economics of rights. Vinciamo Sports, Sport. Reimagined.