International Sports Associations

world and regional nongovernmental international organizations in the sphere of physical culture, physical education, and sport.

National sports organizations and, in a number of cases, international sports organizations and individual persons are members of international sports associations. There are international sports organizations of a universal, general nature, which are not limited in their operations to any one sphere of physical culture and sport (for example, the International Council of Sport and Physical Education), and specialized organizations, which are subdivided by type of sport (such as boxing, volleyball, and so on). Other specialized groups are organized around teaching and activities having a direct relationship to physical culture and sport (the International Federation of Sportive Medicine) or along occupational (International Sports Union of Railway Workers), religious (Catholic International Federation for Physical and Sports Education), or other lines. Associations exist that take their membership exclusively from the socialist countries (Sports Committee of Friendly Armies) or exclusively from the capitalist countries (International Military Sports Council). The majority of associations have been guided by the development of amateur sport, but some unite amateur and professional organizations (for example, in tennis and soccer). There are also international associations for professional sports (in wrestling, for example). The structures and statutes, founding principles, and general activities of most international associations are identical to those accepted by other international non-governmental organizations.

The international sports associations are charged with helping to create corresponding national organizations and with recognizing them, establishing and strengthening contacts with them, and verifying their adherence to adopted statutes. The associations study and disseminate international experience in their own field, create the material and financial base for the development of physical culture and sport, develop rules and regulations on the specific form of sport, plan and organize international competitions, and register records. The budgets of the associations are based on such sources as membership fees by national sports organizations; private donations; subsidies, in some cases from governmental and intergovernmental organizations; shares of revenues generated by competitions and publishing activities; and payments for television rights.

In 1973 there were more than 200 international sports associations. Soviet sports organizations are members of 63 world and 15 European associations (see Table 1, pages 72-73); 117 Soviet representatives occupy 165 different posts in the associations. The sports organizations of the USSR do not participate in the international bodies of sports that are not cultivated or widely developed in the USSR (such as baseball, bobsledding and tobogganing, bowling, or cricket). Soviet organizations likewise are not members of organizations for professional sports. Representatives of the organizations of the USSR and other socialist countries in sports associations work toward the democratization of the international sport movement. They fight racial and political discrimination in sport, call for the granting of equal rights to all national sports organizations, support the preservation of such ceremonies as the playing of national anthems and the display of national flags during competitions and victory ceremonies, and work to improve technical rules and provisions.