The Role of Sport Governing Bodies in Safeguarding Sport

[Music] Welcome to ScorePotPast and the very first episode of our journey to the Construct Safe Gardening in the world of sports. We will break down concepts, question assumptions, and unpack the biases and beliefs that shape the conversation around safe gardening. We will dig deep, right to the core of meaning and understanding. And we are your host, Alexandra Volkov and Anata Tatdeja. And behind the scenes looking after the audio is Ryan Lobbix. Let's be Construct Safe Gardening together. [Music] Joining us from the UK today is Claudia Villa. We invite Claudia to discuss what international sports governing bodies currently do and can do to ensure a safe sport environment for all participants. Adlets, their entourage, employees, event organizers, and others take hold of us. Welcome Claudia. Thank you so much for having me here. Claudia is an expert in the field of safe gardening and human rights with specialist knowledge and professional experiences in combating child criminal and sexual exploitation, serious youth violence and human trafficking. Claudia is also recognized humanitarian and has worked with refugees, asylum seekers, and people who have been displaced due to conflict or natural disasters. Currently, Claudia is an independent safe garden consultant and works with a number of sport bodies and humanitarian organizations to develop and implement safe garden best practices. As part of her work, Claudia is leading the safe garden agenda at the centre for sport and human rights. And she's also a member of the Council of Europe, pool of international experts on safe sport and co-chair of the international safe guards for children in sport working group. Claudia, we would like to know more about you. Can you tell us what brought you to working with the safe garden in sports? Thank you, Donata and thank you, Alexandra. So, first of all, maybe I'd like to talk about what brought me to working in safe garden. So, my career started in the humanitarian world, working with refugees and asylum seekers, and my role was to provide support, to industry support, immigration related support. But it wasn't specifically safe garden. And what I found is that people were coming to me disclosing somebody abused their suffered along the way or prior to escaping their countries. So, I found myself that I wasn't ready to support, probably, with the disclosure that was given to me. So, I decided to train and become a safe garden professional. So, I did a lot of training in counseling in safe garden itself to understand how I could support people coming to me and sharing their experiences and their abuse. So, I was very humbled that I was able to listen to the stories and to their experiences and to be in a sense chosen to share that moment with them. So, there's a very humbling role and a very privileged role to be in. What brought me to working sport is during COVID, I was seconded to a hidden harm unit when I was supporting people that were experiences abused in their home. And that really left me unable to cope with the experiences that were been left with me. I was struggling to always dealing with cases and listening to stories of abuse. As I had been doing there for the past 15 years, every day, that became too much. So, I decided to move away from case managing and being on the front line. Now, I wanted to look for a different role. And I saw a head of safeguarding role advertised with the Commonwealth Games. And he was an amazing role. It's in compassive strategic level, expertise, safeguarding level, but also there was some element of case management and creating structures for safeguarding in sport. So, I applied and I didn't even think I was getting through the interview stages and never worked in sport before. All my career was in safeguarding local authority, charities, NGOs, international government bodies. So, I then got off of the job and that was an amazing experience. A new word completely opened for me. I was able to translate and a thing that I've learned in the humanitarian sector in the local authority, local government sectors into sport. And see what the gaps were. Also, in humanitarian sector, there were a lot of scandals happening. And there was a lot of learning that came through from cases of like reviews of cases of abuse. So, I was taking all their learning into sport. And of the new sport, I haven't since. So, yeah, it's been a great journey and I hope I will continue to be working within the sport sector. And then since 2020, you've not only worked with the Commonwealth Games, but collaborated with many different organizations and sports governing bodies. And we want to start our conversation with exactly this. What should be the role of responsibility of establishing a safe sport environment? What should be the role of sports governing bodies? First of all, I think like international sports governing bodies, old duty of care to elite athletes and all athletes, actually, but also to all participants across the sport ecosystem. So, there's a variety of responsibilities we left to align with values of ethics and integrity, as well as the public interest mandate that includes the respect of human rights and child protection obligations. So, all the bodies will have to look at those responsibilities towards this important aspect of the sport ecosystem. Also, one of the things that I always said is that abuse cannot be looked at only as a matter of compliance or discipline, is a violation of human rights. And as such, we need to respond to it in an appropriate way. And sport governing bodies play a central role in shaping and implementing the norms that underpin safe sport cultures globally and the roles and responsibilities with regard to safe guiding. So, when looking at safe guiding, we should focus on the very fundamental pillars of safe guiding and looking at both prevention and response. So, not one or the other, both pillars. And I think maybe I'll talk about that a little bit later about how sports governing bodies have really focused on prevention at the moment. There is a great raising movement on how to provide good safe guiding education. And there are a lot of materials that can be found out there about athletes, coaches, and all the general sport in the garage, and how they can be trained to provide safe guiding and recognize signs of abuse and harm. Also, one of the other things that I strongly believe sports governing bodies should do and must do is leading by example. So, if you model a culture of safe guiding and safety, which is true safety without impunity, this does mean that an organization is creating an environment where people, regardless of their status or actual or perceived power, because there is a strong power in balancing sport, that can be actual or perceived, which is very, very important to underline. So, if organization creates an environment where people, regardless of their status, feel safe and raise and can raise the concerns, you can then look at this concern through thoroughly and without any discrimination with integrity and transparency. So, if you lead by example, a culture that is modeled on safety from the top and has zero tolerance on inaction, then you see that this culture filter through down to the grassroots level and creates a really safe environment, which does not mean there are no concerns, but means that all concerns are looked at properly, currently independently, if there is a need to engage with an independent professional, then that can be a very positive starting point. Claudia, that's great. You gave us a lot to unpack. And I think that is quite important for our listeners to go back to something that you mentioned at the very beginning, the concept of duty of care, because we hear it a lot, and I would like to ask you how does the duty of care concept apply to the two pillars that you mentioned, prevent? and response. The duty of care applies to both pillars, definitely. So it's like who's responsibility is to protect, to prevent harm and abuse from happening and who's responsibility it is to respond to harm and abuse. So when we look at the duty of care, we need to understand who are we protecting and who are we protecting people from, which is harm and abuse. So having those clear policies and procedures, having those clear code of conduct that really establish who are the COVID person and who are the accepted and not accepted behavior within your organization really sets the tone of the organization. But also duty of care goes beyond that. Expand into remedies. So what does remedy look like if a person is being harm and abuse? And how can we offer support, like mental support, legal support, sometimes relocation, sometimes financial compensation. So what does remedy look like for this person? And the duty of care starts from prevention, goes into respond, and then goes into the remedy part of it. So all throughout the safeguarding processes. I want to go a little bit deeper in the point one, prevention and education. So if we speak about international sports governing bodies, let's say what should be their role in education? How do you see it? So they should definitely have a role. I'll have a, I would like to let you in episode that really shape the way I do my work now. So our education was for me very, very important always, you know, raising awareness about safe guidance and about recognized design and of abuse and exploitation. And then when I was delivering a course, somebody said to me, well, thanks so much. That's very good. But now I know that a user happened, but I don't have the system to report that what happened to me was actually abused, abused. And that made me think that you cannot just raise awareness unless you have a system that is ready to respond to abuse happening. And it sounds silly, but I never talked about that before. I was just like, yeah, let's raise awareness. But then reason awareness into what? So awareness is important, but you need to then create the responses. So you need to have prevention, reason awareness. So the people recognize what thread was wrong. But also what if now, you know, you have educated people, they understand what abuse is, the recognized sign of abuse, where did they go with it? Did they have a system within your organization, within the national country in which the real creative origin that can support them? Because otherwise, what can you do to support those persons? And in counseling, you know, we have this terminology that says don't scream if you can't intervene. So really, you know, once you're raising awareness, what's what's happening next? And I would recommend everybody that is raising awareness to also have the systems there ready to respond, because they're every training that I've done in safeguarding 100% of the time, I had at least one person coming back to me and say, this has happened to me or this has happened to such and such. So it's very, very important that there is a system behind the is ready to respond when you're raising awareness. So prevention response cannot be separated. They also go hand in hand. And actually, I would like to say that there are some really good examples of awareness raising out there. So I really, really like the FIFA Guardian safeguarding training. I think that's a very well designed safeguarding course. Also the IOC safeguarding officer program. It's very well designed and there are different experts talking and raising awareness on that course. There is there are other safeguarding training run by an international safeguard for children. It's for the available online for free. So there is a lot of awareness out there. But I think if your organization is saying you should attend a safeguarding training course, then what does our organization does to respond to harm reviews when it comes out? Claudia, you mentioned before that for education to make sense, there is a need to have a system to report in place. So I'm wondering, is a system to report provided for by policies and code of conduct? Can you explain to our listeners the difference between the two and why they're so important? So first of all, I would say the safeguarding policy and code of conduct are not enough alone. So you ought to need to have a safeguarding framework, which includes safe recruitment and disciplinary processes and mitigation processes and case management, data protection. So it is wider. So the safeguarding framework need to be in place to respond is so much bigger than just the safeguarding policy and the code of conduct. However, you need two documents to start your safeguarding framework in my opinion. So I think a policy is very important because set out the skeleton of your organization. So from this skeleton, you can build everything else on top. So you have the basic infrastructures that keep up the safeguarding system. The safeguarding policy tells you how important safeguarding is for an organization. What do your organization thinks about safeguarding? Also, what do you mean with safeguarding? As we know that unfortunately, in my opinion, again, there is no internationally recognized safeguarding definition yet. So it's important that we define what we mean with safeguarding. So every time I talk about safeguarding, for me, safeguarding is everything an organization does to prevent and respond to arm and abuse. So that's a very basic one-centred definition. I'll have another organization made defines safeguarding differently. So it's very important that we use common language and we define what safeguarding is and also what abuses and what type of abuse safeguarding policy covers. So within the policy, I would want to see what type of abuse are covered and ideally all type of abuse and also who are the covered persons? So who is covered by safeguarding policy? Who was the scope of the safeguarding policy? So what does the safeguarding policy reaches towards? So that creates a very clear stance for the organizations and say this is where we stand forward with the safeguarding and this is how we will implement safeguarding the organization. Then you have safeguarding procedures that goes in details into effect about this is how we respond to incidents. This is how we will raise awareness within the organization and then you have the code of conduct. So the code of conduct sets standards of behavior that are accepted and not accepted within the organization and clearly outline what we expect people to do when they join the organization and everybody should sign the code of conduct. The joins organization, everybody should be aware of both the policy and the code of conduct and be made accountable if a breach of the two happens. So really what you need to have is not document the work and isolation but document the work within the whole governance structure of the organization. So the safeguarding policy and the code of conduct need to talk to the HR department, need to talk to the finance department, so it needs to be something that really cuts across all aspects of an organization. Previously you were talking about jurisdictional cover. So when we speak about the policy and code of conduct that everybody who joins the organization signs, can you be a bit more specific? Everybody who joins who are we talking about outlets, their entourage or just employees or federation? Are we talking about outlets on national level or continental or international? So to which extent the jurisdictional cover of these documents of code of conduct and policies developed by the sports governing bodies would apply? So because sports governing bodies are self-coventing, they will decide what the jurisdictional coverage is. So that's something that can change. Sometimes when you look at geography it's different so if there are national bodies then obviously it applies within the national jurisdictions and also like all the time you have multiple intersecting jurisdictions that are a play with safeguarding. So it's very important to understand which jurisdiction should and must answer to a concern that's been raised. So that's something that should be established before and discussed before when you are designing your processes and your response mechanisms but also important that you have people that understand safeguarding and the jurisdictional complexity of sports and international competitions and how to effectively support people that raise a concern. So again like the coverage can change from bodies to bodies. The recommendation I always gave is to ensure that everybody that is employed or volunteer or a contractor or a consultant to an organization if they work for you they meet. to really have equal standards or better standards than what you are asking them to sign, but in leaf by. Also, I think it's important that athletes have a code of conduct because we know also of peer-on-peer abuse amongst young athletes, older athletes, so it's very important that they're in the code of good conducts amongst what's expected from athletes. Same way that you have a non-eatle policy or whatever, same way they've guarding. There is an expectation that no abuse will happen in sport at any levels. Also, what's complex is then you have, for example, at a major sport and you have journalists, so who regulates the behavior of the journalists, the behavior of the security staff at the entrance or throughout the stadium? So that's another level of complexity that you have embedded within sports. You have contractors that you may not employ directly, but there are your events, so whose responsibility and who is accountable to respond to allegation of a mute towards them or by them. So something that needs to be taught off and it's quite complex, but it cannot be ignored. Do I understand correctly that in an ideal world, the international sports governing body should have the policy and this code of conduct that everybody who comes across with the sport by any forms of means would sign. I like to say this is not an ideal world. It's in the real world, so this must happen. It's not difficult to be achieved. You can have a policy, you can have a code of conduct, you can establish that everybody that comes into contact with your sport will be protected. There will be no culture of impunity, there will be no action taken, every case will be looked at and will be dealt with to ensure that everybody feels safe and protected when they come into contact with sport. So it's not difficult, it's about willingness and where the safe guardians stay in your organization, how important it is within your organization and how much are you willing to put behind it really. - So is this happening? Because the study is not difficult, question is, is this happening if not what's not happening, what are the challenges to make this happen? - So I think it's happening. I have seen a massive shift since I joined the sports sector towards safeguarding and safeguarding standard and embedding safeguarding within the culture of the organization, the structure of an organization. I think there is some great leadership out there that is really understanding the cost of doing nothing and the cost of ignoring safeguarding. But financially but also morally, ethically and emotionally for the affected people. So I think there is a shift, I'm very pleased to see this shift and I am pleased to see people that want to learn about how to do safeguarding well and how to embed safeguarding well within your organization. Yes, there are some tick boxes still out there, but also you know, you got to start somewhere and it's about using professional, the organization, the organization that are willing to help, willing to support and share knowledge about how to protect everybody who is involved in sport. - You are leading us to the next question actually. We thought of asking you who sports governing bodies should team up with to address safeguarding problems. You just started talking about it and we want to go deeper into this because there are quite a lot of different NGOs, different UN agencies, they already have a safeguarding policy that could serve as an example. So can you elaborate on that a little bit more? How do you see which organizations the sports governing bodies should team up with to develop policies and response mechanisms? - So first of all, listen to the affected people. The people that went to the system and I found the system not fit for purpose or I found the system to be supportive. So listen to their feedback. Develop system with the athletes, with the people that you think are using the system will be using the system. So really listen. Also ensure that the systems that you develop are contextually relevant. So not every organization, not every country has got infrastructures at the same level and support system at the same level. So what you develop will need to be realistic and contextual to what's available and what services you can access. Work with national federations and NOC. Because they are the ones also that are implemented the system locally. And connect with athletes commissions, connect with civil organization, for example, like UNICEF or UNESCO or other organizations and yours like the Salesforce for Sporting and Rights or Safe Sports International, the International Safe Card for Children in Sport, but also academic institutions. So there is a lot of research out there. Make sure that everything that you implement is evidence-based, backed by research, but also backed by practitioners so that in the experience of practitioners and researcher, this works well. So there is a lot out there, a lot of resources out there that can be used, a lot of organization that can be used. And how can you listen to the affected people? How can international sports, going bad, can access affected people and really listen to them? - By asking and explaining what we want to do, we want to create a system that is fit for purpose, that works. And create a culture where there is openness and there is no fear of repercussions is inclusive. Also consider that they may be some people that have experienced abuse, but that abuse is not disclosed or they're not ready to disclose the type of abuse. So open up your doors and say, I would like to create a system that works. We need support from the people that are using this system. We know athletes are disproportionately affected because of power imbalance. So we want to create the environment for them to come forward, but also listen to the athlete's entourage who can also be victim of abuse. And yeah, create an environment that is inclusive, is open to listening, open to positive learning and open to receive critical feedback. And then what's important is that you actually implement what you've learned. So it's not just enough to listen, but you need to make those recommendations into practice and how you are operationalizing those recommendations into your work in organization. Claudia, listen to you. I'm still puzzled and curious about the disconnects between international and national levels. I would like to put in context what you're saying, what you're talking about, on how the international support government can actually work with the local, with the national level. And I wanted to refer back to something that you said, the idea of leading by example, that is in the role of sports-going bodies and having zero tolerance on inaction, and that this will eventually trickle down to the local. Can you give us some example of how this can actually take space? So I think that's a two-part discussion. So how can trickle down is definitely by leading with examples, setting the standards and showing that this is how we live in this organization. It's like a family. This is how we live in the family. Everybody comes to the table and same time, we dinner together. So when you set your family rules same, with the NJF federations, this is our rules, this is how we behave in these organizations, and that is what's expected. So that's how I think it can then trickle down to the different levels. How we can include like national organization and connect to international safeguarding standards. That's by working with local populations, local people, local experts. So there is maybe another topic to explore about the colonization of safeguarding. Like the idea. And you know, safeguarding is a concept that was born in Europe is very much a Western concept. And again, it's got exported to other contexts. So how do we refer to safeguarding? What does it mean to protect young people? What does it mean to protect adults? And how do we protect adults in different and children in different parts of the world? And having different processes does not mean that one is better than the other. It means that one maybe works better than the other in different contexts. And one cannot work in certain contexts. So really work with the local expert, with the local people, and let them lead on the implementation of safeguarding based on international safeguarding standards. So we're not compromising on the international standards that have been internationally recognized, but we are expanding those standards to ensure that they are applicable at local level. So in case of international sports governing bodies, like let's say international federations, it would be through the system of members, through member federations. That's how you see it. Yes, I can be through that. And you know, you have a set of safeguarding standards that everybody needs to comply by, but then these are localized. You know, so what else do we need to do to implement those safeguarding standards and making sure the day works. So I'll give you an example that is linked to my counseling work. In the Western world, counseling is like one to one. And while I was working in other countries in the global south, and they understand what counseling looks like, which is not called counseling, is like mental support, the community support, app and the community level. So you get support at community level. So it's still mental and support. It just in the Western world is seen as a benefit as a one to one approach. In another part of the world is best in effective at community level. And there is no right or wrong. The both effective, the both work is just how does it work differently in different parts of the world. As I asked before, how can this trickle down? I was wondering how can this trickle up? How can international support government learn from the national and embed these differences in practices and approaches? So there is no one-fit-all approach. That's my message. Yes, we have standards that we are not compromising against, but also how those standards are respected can look different in different places. And it should be the flexibility to adapt framework to the local reality, but also still by not compromising on the standards of behavior, and organization, set an international level. It's an example that I can give in practical terms is not only age of the child. So what's the child? Different country define a child in different ways. So some countries have a child under 18. Some other have under 16. So there are differences in the age. In an international federation, we can say in this federation, if you work for this sport, we consider a child, anybody under 18. So that would be like internationally applicable for all the sport bodies underneath and the members underneath. Within this sport, anybody under 18 is a child. So the disciplinary process, the investigation process, will apply considering a person under 18 a child. I want to go back to the question we asked some time ago. What do you think are the limitations and challenges of international sports governing bodies to implement these policies like you described now? Then your opinion and in your experience, what have you seen? When I think about limitation, and also I hear that a lot, and I think sports is a self-government. So limitation or self-imposed. Often again, I hear issues about capacity and capability. Capability can be built, but in capacity, you decide as a sport body, as a self-government, sports body, how to do your spirit and allocate resources. So the question, that is how important is safeguarding for your organization. When we look at safeguarding, we need to ensure that the people that are responsible for safeguarding have expertise. So expertise is not built with a one-day course. Expertise is built with ears and ears of sleepless nights, where I think I want to support this person and I cannot support this person. I don't know how to support this person because the systems are not there for me to allow me to support this person. So real safeguarding expertise, it really requires dedicated resources, dedicated knowledge, specialist knowledge. And then you have the right people that can really understand and have fluency in cultural approaches, but also policy application and jurisdictional application of safeguarding. When I think about limitation, there is something that I wanted to highlight. We talk about sport and abusing sport, but also sport can be the safe space for many people. When you talk about sports, you have a great relationship many times, fortunately, between the athletes and the coach or the athlete and their entourage. And they trust, they build a trusting relationship. And then they share the something is happening outside sport to them. So I guess that's where limitation comes in, which is like, when can you not act because it's not within your sport jurisdiction? So something is happening outside of sport and you created a safe space for the athlete or somebody else is to share that they have experience something that is abusive or harmful in nature. And that's where your expertise of your safeguarding officer comes in and they can navigate the resources and the systems outside of sports to provide a support, signpost that person to the right organization that can't help them outside of sport. So although we talked about abusing sport, I also wanted to recognize that sport is positive and for many, many people, that's the safe space and we need to recognize that as well. You mentioned before that the policies should be based on evidence-based research. Imagine if these programs are implemented by international organizations and then they train self-guarding officers on national levels, et cetera. How can sports governing bodies measure the impact of their activities and of their programs? In your opinion, how should be measured qualitative, quantitative, how data should be collected without going much into technical details on an overall superficial level? So first of all, I would say how many cases come true? If you have no cases, this does not mean there is no abuse. It means that you don't know that abuse is happening. So abuse is happening. Unfortunately, we know that no organization is immune to harm and abuse within the organization. If you have no cases, you should ask yourself, why have I got no cases? I mean, if you got it right, then just share the information with all of us. But really, what I have learned is that if you have no cases that people don't trust the system, so you don't have a system that works. So you need to review your systems and making sure that people can trust it and raise awareness. Within safeguarding, also you don't have all cases of sexual abuse, for example. You have also minor issues. So there could be, for example, addressed by increasing training and educating somebody about the acceptable and acceptable behaviors. So you have a whole span of different safeguarding incidents from minor incidents that require, yes, to be looked at, but also to the level of sexual emotional abuse and all of that. So you need to ensure that you look at all of them. Perhaps, Gaudia, I'll jump into this thread with something that you mentioned before about peer review and collaboration that is critical among the practitioners within safeguarding. And so I'm wondering, is this happening at the international sports governing bodies level to assess and measure what they do? Is there any collaboration, is there any peer review happening to support each other? Not formally, which perhaps should be, but within my network, I have people that I trust because also trust is important. I need to recognize my own vulnerability and my own limitation. So there are some people that I trust that have different expertise for me, where I often go to and ask whether I'm missing something when I'm dealing with a case or dealing with a process. So I created my own peer support and network and we support each other. We contact each other a lot with regards to how do we do safeguarding and to have that critical friend, as I said, that checks on the work that we are doing and criticize our work in a constructive way. But also sometimes in an archway, sometimes you need like, hey, what are you doing? And then Willy wakes you up and says, OK, no, no, I need to reframe and start doing something differently. So you need those peer support networks that can really be there for you when you need to triple check that you've not missing anything. Would you consider various conferences that are happening on safeguarding as a platform for peer support in a way where federations present their programs and then where different experts give their opinions, present their research, for example? Yes, those are amazing events. I love connecting with peer safeguards and learning from different people. I think those are really valuable. I also think like what's the purpose of the conference? So if the purpose of the conference is to raise awareness about safeguarding, then you don't want to see your peer colleagues. You want to see new faces. You want to see people that don't perhaps know about safeguarding. If you said the purpose of the conference is to share best practices and enjoy that these continuous professional development and peer support amongst safeguarders, then yes, it is nice to see my fellow colleagues and reflect on what we've done and what we will be doing and is our practice still relevant? You know, safeguarding is quite a new practice and is very quickly developing. There is a lot of learning happening, not just in support by an undersector as well, like a lot of case reviews and learning reviews, so we should really take that into account and adapt our practice continually as it evolves and it learns from experience. Considering all the limitations and everything we spoke, about considering it's a new area of responsibility for sports governing bodies and its development very fast. What should be the priority of international LGBTs that don't have yet an established policy in place? What should be their priority in safeguarding right now? So again, I go back first of all to listen to what your people are saying, listen to what your athletes are saying. And I would say like institutionalized safeguarding and institutionalized independent safeguarding structures. So they are part of your organization. It's important that if you have institutional safeguarding then you have all the structure in place as you have in all your other part of your organization. And abide by universal standards. So ensure that there are the starting points, not the end points, but the starting point of how you develop your safeguarding framework. Ensure that you build in transparency and accountability in your mechanisms so that there is a public reporting of cases. I was surprised to see that in the sports sector it's quite secretive, you know. It's like nobody knows what's going on. Or we don't want to share information about how many cases are happening in this federation or whatever. While when I was working for the local authorities, local governments or other charity organizations, everything was public. I mean, public with consideration of confidentiality. So we would be releasing the number of cases in a year, where are those cases? Not necessarily maybe the details of the case, but there would be public scrutiny and numbers would be there available for everybody to see. So there is a little bit of learning that still needs to be done there about how can we be transparent and accountable to the people we serve in sport. And that goes together, you know, with building a culture of safety. So we don't share it because we don't feel safe. So how can we feel safe in this environment and showing that yes, we got it wrong at times and we want to get it better. We want to ensure that this does not happen again. So how do you do that? You have a good grievance mechanisms, which is scrutinized, which is culturally appropriate, which is rise based and works across jurisdictions. You have capacity building, capacity and capability buildings so that the right people are in the right place and respond to concerns in the right way. And then there is meaningful engagement with everybody that may be using the system. Claudia, you gave us so many inputs, but we're reaching the end. What do we do? Should we do another episode on deconstructing and decolonizing safeguarding or on how to institutionalize independent safeguarding structure or even on how international sport-gaming bodies can learn from other sectors. Because as you said, there is still a lot to be done looking at public sector, private sector as well. But I think that now we are reaching the end, unfortunately. And we would like to ask if there is anything else that you would like to add now that we're reaching the end of our conversation. I like to finish on a positive note, say that there are a lot of people out there that really puts safeguarding the centre of everything they do. There are a lot of good sport and non-sport organization that are leading the way in safeguarding and want to ensure that everybody is safe in a true sport. Let's not forget about the positive power of sport. A sport can be a safe space for many, many people and I like to remember that and admire and celebrate the power of sport. Thank you very much, Claudia, for this insightful conversation. The role of international sports governing bodies is crucial to establish a safe sport environment and institutionalizing proper safeguarding mechanisms and systems in the organization. I'll continue repeating this word now. And it was really amazing to hear your opinion about it. But before we let you go, is there any book or article that you would like to recommend our listeners to check out if they want to learn more about the legal landscape of say sports and international sports governing bodies? My passion in sport is on mega-sporting event and I love reading the Ruth Lage Handbook of mega-sporting events and human rights. So there are different chapters including one on child rights and it's very interesting. It doesn't look just the state's guardian and I think will be an interesting reading for everybody to listen in. Thank you very, very much, Claudia. It was amazing to have you with us today. Now we're saying our goodbyes. Thank you so Thank you for listening. This show is produced by sports think tank. With a Switzerland-based association we are dedicated to creating safe spaces for honest and meaningful conversations that positively impact the world of sports. Special thanks to the entire squad team working behind the scenes to our brilliant sound wizard Ryan Lobbix and to our wonderful graphic designer Natalia Plaza Sanchez. Be sure to check out our LinkedIn page for more information about this episode and also the work that we do and we invite you to explore the other episodes as we continue this journey of deconstructing safeguarding in sport. [Music]