Financing Sport in the EU: Is That a Business or a Social Enterprise?

The focus of this paper is to evaluate conceptions, perceptions, and interpretations of ‘financing sport’ throughout the European continent. The paper will aim to shed light on the ways that policy contexts dictate the application of sport financing as well as sport practices. While many sport facilities were developed from the 1970s onwards it was not until the 1980s and 1990s that a field began to emerge from the utilitarian presumption that the promotion of sport would have beneficial outcomes for social and civic order. This paper would like to focus some attention to the increasing involvement of central and local governments in sport financing despite an ongoing decrease in sport participation worldwide. Moreover, in pursuing this line of interrogation this paper asserts that opportunity structure for the organization and development of sporting activities has shifted from developmental to managerial throughout the 21st century.