Chapter 5: Other models
How different countries structure sport as a public good.
When I was doing the background work behind this book at the Blavatnik School of Government in 2022, the Dean, Ngaire Woods, made a simple but powerful point: if you want to innovate in government, start by finding where else in the world what you want to do has already been done.
With that in mind, I spent time with Master’s in Public Policy students exploring how different countries embed sport into public policy. The perspectives ranged widely – from Colombia and Mexico to Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and India – and the discussion ranged across questions of legislation, education, facilities, and the role of government versus the private sector in developing sport.
What quickly became clear was how much culture shapes the way sport is organised.
One example that struck me was the contrast between two countries that appear superficially similar: the United Kingdom and New Zealand. The difference in how public green space is used was stark. In Britain it is often fenced, gated, or restricted. As one participant observed, it “feels closer to the general exclusionary approach of British society, where everything seems to be a club that you can’t go into.”
In addition to the workshop, I looked at sporting models in other countries for which there is substantial literature. While each has something that can be drawn on, I lay out here no more than a couple of examples, since that is enough to frame the wider discussion and demonstrate that there is no good reason why we need to approach the running of sport in the way that we do. We only have the framework we have because most models are cobbled together over a historical period rather than being fundamentally readdressed for the modern world - and because, as Britain started first, it has arguably the most fossilised set-up.
When looking at other countries, the aim is not to find a perfect model that can simply be copied. Every nation’s system reflects its own history, culture and political institutions. But comparative examples can still be valuable, because they reveal the underlying design choices that different societies have made about sport: who is responsible for delivering it, how it is funded, where it sits within public policy, and how accessible it is to ordinary citizens. Looking across countries therefore helps us see something that is easy to miss when examining our own system alone – that the way Britain organises sport is not inevitable.
The Netherlands
The Dutch have an interesting model. It wasn’t until the post-war period that sport there began to be organised centrally, having previously been organised privately and supported by local government – a bottom-up approach rather than a national top-down hierarchy. 60% of the population live within five kilometres not just of a sporting facility, but of the sports facility of their choice; and the network of cycle paths makes them easy to get to.[1] Perhaps as a consequence, participation rates among the population as a whole are high: 65% take part at least once a month, and 37% once a week[2] - higher than all other countries in Europe outside Scandinavia, with the exception of Ireland. Among those younger than 20, 90% play sport outside school, but even among those aged 65 to 79, 41% participate. 72% of women and 69% of men take part[3] – figures which stand in marked contrast with the British experience, where 70 and 60% respectively don’t.[4]
Almost one in three of the Dutch population, and half of that part of it which plays sport, are members of a sports club, and it is community sports clubs (of which there are approximately 27,000 nationwide[5]) that are the main framework for sporting activity: schools and commercial enterprises between them number only around 3,200.[6] Founded and run by their members, those clubs have around 13,000 paid staff,[7] with 443 local municipalities providing most of their funding.[8]
The network of sports clubs expanded significantly In the post-war period, when government investment into them – aimed at ‘stimulat[ing] sport as an extra-curricular activity’ – led to more than a trebling of membership: to 3.5million people over a 25-year period.[9] Economic issues after that led to a scaling back of investment and a focus on disadvantaged target groups, and as community participation stagnated for the first time, commercial offerings grew. But as the significance of sport in both social and cultural terms has become more widely recognised internationally in the 21st Century, so too has the Dutch government elevated sport in its list of priorities. A two-time Olympian, Erica Terpstra, was appointed Under Secretary of State for Health, Welfare and Sport when sport was elevated to a ministry title for the first time. And in the ten years from 1998, the government budget for sport doubled.[10] The budget for elite sport – acknowledged for the first time as a policy tool in its own right – tripled to €30m,[11] while still falling as a percentage of overall spend on sport.[12] Successive Dutch governments have, since the mid 1990s, focused on sport as a tool of public health, launching initiatives in conjunction between the NOC*NSF,[13] the Dutch Heart Foundation, and the Dutch Cancer Foundation. The ‘Dutch Healthy Exercise Standard’ prescribed by government is ‘at least half an hour of moderately intensive physical activity’ at least five times a week for those aged between 18 and 54, and ‘at least one hour of moderately intensive physical activity’ for children under 18.[14]
This level of participation at a community level has wider implications on sports funding. At the World Rowing Championships of September 2023, Great Britain won six golds, a silver and two bronzes, to stand head and shoulders above the field at the top of the medal table. With the exception, that is, of the Dutch – who pipped them to first place. They did the same at the Paris Olympics in 2024, and at the World Championships in 2025.
While the fact remains that Britain has been a much more successful Olympic nation than the Netherlands in the post-war period (and particularly since the turn of the century),[15] it is nonetheless true that with an elite programme that is not as generously funded as Britain’s – and a smaller population – the Netherlands are consistently among the countries to beat.
The Dutch example demonstrates something important: participation that is deeply embedded in community life produces both high levels of engagement at the grassroots and international success.
Norway
Norway offers two lessons that are particularly important.
The first is that sports structures evolve constantly, and there is no reason to be scared about changing what we have just because it has deep historic roots; and the second, the central vital role that community sports clubs can play. A key pillar of Norwegian sports policy is the role of clubs which “run the activities and create a lasting interest in sport and physical activity”.[16] Their focus on participation rather than competition was something that gained prominence during the most recent Winter Olympics, with a number of commentators noticing that a nation of 5.6million people had become dominant over others ‘by making sport fun’.[17]
Physical activity in Norway is based much less on traditional sport as we would define it in Britain (football, cricket, netball etc.) and much more on pursuits like hiking, cross-country skiing and cycling,[18] and 86% of children and young people in Norway belong to a club today, compared with just 40% in the 1970s.[19]
A third lesson from Norway, then, is that sports structures are not fixed. They can evolve dramatically over time when governments choose to prioritise participation and design systems that support it.
These are just two examples from many countries that I explored. I would not want to bore readers with an exhaustive summary of how sport is delivered around the world: those with an interest can find them easily enough. These two examples illustrate the broader point. Countries organise sport in very different ways, and none has discovered a perfect model that can simply be copied. But international comparisons do reveal a set of proven ingredients that work.
The opportunity now is to bring together the best lessons – from France, Australia, Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands and Norway (to take my favourite six) – and combine them into a coherent model that works for the UK.
It is to that model that we now turn.
[1] Martin van Bottenburg in Participation in Sport – international policy perspectives (ed. Nicholson, Hoye and Houlihan), p. 26
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Citation needed
[5] Van Bottenburg, p. 28
[6] Ibid. p. 29
[7] 2008 figures. See van Bottenburg, p. 28
[8] This accounts for 87% of public spending on sport. ibid. p.30
[9] 1955-1980. In 1950, membership stood at 1m. The country’s total population grew from 10m to 14.15m over the same period. Ibid. pp. 31-2
[10] Ibid. pp. 35-37
[11] Ibid. p. 37. For context, British Rowing’s funding for the Tokyo Olympic cycle was £32m.
[12] Down to 28% in 2008 from 36% in 1999. van Bottenburg, p. 37
[13] This body runs sport in the Netherlands. It is the equivalent of UKSport and Sport England combined.
[14] Dutch government website https://jeugdmonitor.cbs.nl/en/definitions/Dutch%20healthy%20exercise%20norm%3A%20NNGB%20%28Nederlandse%20Norm%20Gezond%20Bewegen%29
[15]Team GB has won 166 golds since the war, to 73 for the Dutch. From Sydney 2000 to Tokyo 2020, Britain has won 117 to the Netherlands’ 47. Source: Wikipedia
[16] Norway by Nils Asle Bergsgard and Jan Ove Tangen, in Participation in Sport (Nicolson et al.), p.71
[17] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/feb/26/norway-winter-olympics-message-for-us-all. See also, for example, https://substack.com/inbox/post/188390716?utm_source=unread-posts-digest-email&inbox=true&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true
[18] Ibid. p. 60
[19] Ibid. p.67
So what is the main difference between New Zealand and UK? It was tantalising to read but the explanation never came... instead you write about the Netherlands.