In September, I was invited to take part in a roundtable meeting at the UNICEF UK headquarters in London with a pool of safeguarding experts. We got together for a two-day workshop to begin the development of a safeguarding accountability framework for mega sporting events.
Mega sporting events involve a huge number of international stakeholders, including international federations, national sporting governing bodies, local organising committees, host cities, sponsors, media and many more. When it comes to safeguarding, such a wide range of players can make it difficult to determine where responsibilities lie and how to hold both perpetrators, organisations and enablers accountable. The very definition of safeguarding itself is not widely understood globally, and is not directly translatable in many languages, particularly in the Global South.
Due to this ambiguity, mega sporting events sometimes fail to uphold accountability, with inconsistent approaches creating vulnerabilities for impacted people. The objective of this roundtable meeting was to develop a framework which can be used during event planning to address this issue in a collaborative way.
I had the pleasure of being invited as an ‘independent expert’ with lived experience of abuse in sport, joining the following highly experienced and esteemed professionals in the field:
- Claudia Villa, Head of Safeguarding at the Centre for Sport and Human Rights
- Gloria Viseras, Senior Manager of Safeguarding at the IOC
- Janice Shardlow, Director of Governance at Commonwealth Sport
- Laura Main, Senior Manager for Social Values of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2026
- Jean-Bennoit Charrin, Senior Human Rights Manager at the IOC
- Marie-Laure Lemineur, Head of Safeguarding and Child Protection at FIFA
- Mark Mungal, Chair of the Trinidad & Tobago Safe Sport Commission
- Dr. Nohnhanla Mkumbuzi, member of the Global Observatory for Gender Equality & Sport’s Expert Group on GBV & Violence Against Women and Girls
- Rouzbeh Khajeheian, Safeguarding Manager of the FIFA Futsal Women’s World Cup 2025
- Luis Pineda, Senior Human Rights & Sustainability Manager for the FIFA World Cup 2026
- Linda Mastandrea, Senior Manager of Accessibility & Safeguarding for the FIFA World Cup 2026
- Tom Dore, Vice President of the British Esports Federation
Over two days of productive workshops and engaging conversations, we explored the intricacies of safeguarding accountability across different sports, regions and jurisdictions. Through an intersectional approach considering diverse perspectives, we strived to build a framework that is applicable and adaptable across various cultural and regulatory contexts. After creating a draft, we put it through a stress-testing process to see how it could be used to prevent and respond to various complex safeguarding issues.
It was a pleasure to spend two days collaborating with professionals who are deeply passionate and knowledgeable about safeguarding in sport. Particularly as a former athlete and survivor advocate, it was rewarding to take part in this groundbreaking initiative which aims to lay the foundations for safer mega sporting events globally.
Emma is a sports ethicist specialising in safeguarding in Muay Thai. She’s also a former fighter, athlete-survivor and advocate, and has been writing about gendered issues in Muay Thai since 2013. After living in Thailand for 12 years, she completed a master’s degree in Sports Ethics & Integrity in Europe, conducting the world’s first study on sexual harassment & abuse in Muay Thai.
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