In the world of sport, disruption does not always announce itself in grand terms. Sometimes it arrives as a missing volunteer, a broken roof, a corrupted database, or a news story that takes on a life of its own. These are not corporate hypotheticals – they are lived realities that reshape participation, fracture trust, and derail entire pathways of athlete development. Business continuity planning (BCP), when understood through the lens of sport, is no longer about ticking the box for good governance. It becomes an act of stewardship: of foresight, solidarity, and commitment to the sport itself.
And yet, continuity planning is still often framed as a bureaucratic function – a spreadsheet exercise that happens in a back office, rarely revisited, and even less often socialised throughout the sporting ecosystem. For national governing bodies (NGBs), this disconnect is more than a missed opportunity. It is a latent vulnerability. When disruption hits, the organisations that recover fastest are not the ones with the glossiest policies. They are the ones who understood their dependencies, mapped the downstream effects of failure, and rehearsed their response with those who will be affected.
In sport, the stakes are higher than they first appear – because continuity gaps do not stay contained. They ripple outward, disrupting not just the governing body but the fabric of the sport itself.
It is worth noting that sport, unlike many sectors, is not operationally self-contained. The NGB does not own or control most of the venues, coaching staff, or volunteers who deliver the experience. Nor does it usually possess direct command over the events and competitions that define progression. Instead, it relies on a decentralised, delicate network of delivery partners – clubs, schools, local authorities, charities, independent coaches, officials – all of whom form part of a wider ecosystem. Continuity planning in this space must therefore transcend the idea of business-as-usual and engage directly with what happens to sport, and to people, when things go wrong.
Consider the practical impact of an acute disruption. A regional sports hall becomes structurally unsafe. It is one of only two sites in the country with the appropriate equipment for a national qualifying event. The event is cancelled. Athletes are left without the opportunity to progress. Refunds are issued but not recouped. Sponsors reconsider their exposure. The calendar tightens, and a tranche of grassroots participants, already tentative about their commitment, drift elsewhere.
This is not an invented scenario. It is the kind of cascading consequence that occurs when continuity risks are not mapped across the full chain of dependency. And it is illustrative of a broader truth: in sport, continuity planning is not simply about self-preservation. It is about safeguarding trust, maintaining momentum, and honouring the investment – financial, emotional, and physical – that participants and volunteers bring to the table.
Where business continuity in other sectors might hinge on facilities, data, or supply chain logistics, in sport it often hinges on people. And herein lies one of the sector’s great strengths and weaknesses. The volunteer base that underpins most community sport is loyal, generous, and deeply committed – but it is also transient, often overstretched, and rarely the subject of formalised succession planning. A club may function effectively for years, with one individual carrying out multiple roles, until illness, burnout, or resignation leaves a vacuum. With no continuity plan in place – no handover notes, no second-in-command, no shared access to systems – operations halt. Children miss sessions. Affiliations lapse. A reputation for instability takes hold.
NGBs cannot be expected to micromanage the continuity risks of every affiliated club or provider. But they can, and arguably must, take the lead in embedding a culture of preparedness that reflects the real-world dynamics of their sport. This means going beyond policy publication and into active leadership. It means training club chairs and safeguarding leads in basic risk resilience. It means offering template continuity plans, not as a regulatory requirement, but as a gesture of partnership. It means acknowledging that the impact of disruption is uneven – and that without support, the weakest nodes in the system will always bear the brunt.
It is easy to overlook the reputational dimension of continuity failure, particularly in sectors that are not directly consumer-facing. But in sport, reputation is everything. It is what underwrites the relationship between an NGB and its members. It is what attracts funders and sponsors. It is what enables public bodies to justify investment. And it is what allows parents to trust that their child is safe, valued, and progressing in the right environment.
When a safeguarding incident occurs, for example, the adequacy of the response is often more consequential than the incident itself. Were concerns handled transparently? Was there a known process? Were those affected supported? A continuity plan that recognises these scenarios as reputational and human risks – not just legal or procedural ones – is not a luxury. It is essential.
This applies equally to technology. As sport becomes increasingly reliant on digital systems – whether for performance analysis, athlete monitoring, anti-doping compliance, or competition logistics – the risks of cyber disruption grow. And while many NGBs will have some form of IT disaster recovery in place, far fewer have extended these considerations into the community level. Yet a data breach affecting a junior league registration portal, or a ransomware attack on a regional event organiser, could derail local delivery and prompt national scrutiny.
The solution is not to burden local providers with complex technical frameworks, but to offer proportionate, sport-specific guidance: basic cyber hygiene, regular backups, clear points of escalation. When these principles are shared across the delivery network, they become part of the culture. Continuity is no longer a panic response – it is a known protocol.
There is also the matter of infrastructure – physical, financial, and environmental. The changing climate is rendering some facilities intermittently unusable. Floods, heatwaves, structural damage, and unexpected closures are already affecting the availability of sporting venues. For sports with limited facility options, the closure of just one key site can cause entire competitions to be cancelled or moved, often with significant logistical and cost implications.
An effective continuity approach includes the mapping of key sites, the identification of alternative venues, and the establishment of agreements – formal or informal – with neighbouring clubs, facilities, or regions. This cannot be done ad hoc in the moment of crisis. It must be part of a living strategy, reviewed and adapted annually. And it must include not just elite-level sites, but the community environments where sport is learned, loved, and launched.
None of this, it must be said, is particularly glamorous. Business continuity is not a headline-grabbing policy. It is slow, often thankless work. But it is also work that upholds the sport’s ability to function, to grow, and to command trust. And that makes it foundational.
What, then, is the role of the NGB in all of this? It is not to centralise control, but to decentralise capability. To build resilience not only into the organisation, but into the sport. To lead by example – maintaining a continuity plan that is socialised, rehearsed, and tested – and to offer others the tools to do the same. It is about communication, coordination, and culture.
The message to clubs, leagues, and delivery partners should be simple: continuity is not about fear. It is about preparedness. It is not about avoiding all disruptions but about ensuring that a disruption does not become a catastrophe. And it is not about protecting the organisation alone – it is about preserving the experience and the opportunity that sport represents.
In the end, the true test of an NGB’s continuity planning is not whether it can operate during a crisis. It is whether its sport can continue to thrive in the face of one. If we understand continuity in those terms – as the quiet architecture that allows sport to endure, adapt, and flourish – then we see it not as administration, but as guardianship.
The roof will fall in again, figuratively or literally. What matters is how ready we are when it does – and what legacy we protect when we respond.