Sports Integrity

Sport under pressure

Sport has grown beyond the body that carries it. Federations administer people, money, data, and public interest simultaneously. Disciplinary panels adjudicate not only incidents but the frameworks from which those incidents emerge. Integrity committees must render judgment without the protection large legal departments provide elsewhere.

When a report comes in, when a sponsor asks questions, when a doping violation is filed, when a match-fixing suspicion surfaces, or when the press calls, the organisation's governance is tested. What looked robust on paper often turns out to be a collection of loose documents at that moment.

Rijker Advisory works precisely on the line between governance as described and governance that holds up under scrutiny.

RGAM applied to sport

The Rijker Governance Adoption Model is applied concretely within the sports context:

1. 01ReadDiagnosis of existing statutes, regulations, protocols, disciplinary structure, and the organisation's actual practice.
2. 02StructureRevision of disciplinary regulations, code of conduct, integrity code, mandates, and complaint procedures.
3. 03SystemReporting structures, integrity platforms, athlete data governance, evidence management, case files.
4. 04CultureReporting willingness, psychological safety, coach and board conduct, safe-sport practice.
5. 05IntegrityIndependent test of whether the whole holds up when a concrete case arrives.

What we deliver

• Independent fact-finding investigations into integrity reports, complaints, and board-level suspicions.
• Expert opinions for disciplinary panels, arbitration committees, and internal governance bodies.
• Disciplinary regulation and integrity code revision, including harmonisation with national and international federation norms.
• Athlete data governance: privacy, medical data, biometric data, whereabouts, and cross-border transfers.
• Board briefings on governance pressure, match-fixing risk, doping cases, and public incidents.
• Governance forensics: reconstruction of board facts, financial flows, mandate conflicts, and liability.
• Match-fixing advisory: prevention, detection, cooperation with national and international integrity networks.
• Interim integrity officer or interim secretary for federations in transition.

Frameworks and standards

Work is delivered within the frameworks of the Dutch Act on Management and Supervision of Legal Persons (WBTR), the disciplinary regulations of the federations involved, the General Data Protection Regulation, the WADA Code and NADO regulations for doping, and ISR, CAS, and world federation-adjacent norms where applicable. For sports contracts and licence disputes, work is conducted within Dutch contract law and, where relevant, Swiss law.

Relevant credentials

Registered DPO · CIPP/E · CIPM · CIPT · FIP · CISM · ISO 27001 · MBA Sport Management (thesis phase, governance in Dutch combat sports) · former director of the Dutch Martial Arts Federation (2024-2025).