General Administration of Sport of China to be disbanded?

Since he was appointed as the Director of the General Administration of Sport of China, Gou Zhongwen has been actively advocating reform. Some Chinese media has interpreted his intention as a desire to disband the administrative organ of the General Administration of Sport. Below is a brief description of such an argument.

The General Administration of Sport of China is criticized most often for the reason that sports associations cannot exist independently and can only be affiliated to various sports management centers. Thus, this leads to a situation where there is one management for two organizations, i.e. a sports management center and a sport association. This leads directly to the consequence that there is no distinction between government administration, public institution administration and enterprise management. 

Fundamentally speaking, this is an inevitable result of the situation of one management group for three organizations i.e. the General Administration of Sport (as an administrative unit), the All-China Sports Federation (as a social organization) and the Chinese Olympic Committee (as a foreign exchange sports agency). In its daily business, the General Administration of Sport can choose to use the names of different organizations to suit itself, leading to the Administration having multiple identities and ambiguity of authority, responsibilities and interests. As a result, the problems of redundant intervention, managerial absence and insufficient management have gradually come to the fore.

GOU Zhongwen now has three roles, as Director of the General Administration of Sport of China, Chairman of the All-China Sports Federation and President of the Chinese Olympic Committee.

Under the ideal sports management system, the All-China Sports Federation would be responsible for issues such as sport for the masses, sports publicity, science & technology and education, while the Chinese Olympic Committee would take charge of issues such as competitive sports, athletes’ participation in the Olympic Games and participation in international organizations. As for the General Administration of Sport of China, it should be incorporated into the Ministry of Education after having decentralized most of its administrative authority. In this way, the longstanding problem of separation of sports from education in China’s education system will be eliminated completely.

Therefore, the ultimate goal of the reform is the disappearance of the administrative organ that is the General Administration of Sport of China. 

Source：Sportsmoney

Proofread by Sean O Diobhilin