COVID-19 impact on the International Sport Organizations’ activities

Abstract

Olympic sport is one of the most amazing phenomena in human history. However, today it faced an unprecedented problem in human history - the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis of scientific publications shows that today the main sports organizations that have received the most impact from the pandemic are the components of the International Olympic system, namely the International Olympic Committee, International Sports Federations, National Olympic Committees and Olympic organizing committees. Despite a relatively short period of existence - 2 years since the beginning of the pandemic, the coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization, has killed more than 6,2 million people and has had an inevitable impact on the life of the world community [75, 82, 89]. According to David Lange, sport is an integral part of modern life. During the first year of the pandemic, modern sports suffered losses of up to 42% of planned revenue. Some professional sports organizations, such as the national football leagues of England, Germany, Spain, France, resumed their seasons in the summer of 2020 with many restrictions, but failed to function and influence the development of sports [4, 61, 72, 85]. The analysis of literature data showed that the leading sports organizations have successfully adapted to modern conditions of sports development in the conditions of the world pandemic. Some organizations, such as FINA, UIMP, GYMCAN, FIG, have started online sports competitions [29, 33, 76], others - including NOCs, ASOIF - have focused on the digitalization of their activities [17, 53], and still others have paid more attention to the educational component of their activities. conduct courses for coaches, judges and specialists in their sport [44, 51, 76]. However, research has shown that due to the sufficient novelty of the topic, fundamental research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Olympic sports has not been conducted. Therefore, the analysis of the problems faced by the components of the international Olympic system during the COVID-19 pandemic and promising ways to solve them remain a topical issue of research. The aim of the research is to analyse the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the International Olympic system components and to identify ways of improvement of their activities during period of global pandemic. Tasks of the research: 1. To determine the conditions of functioning of international sports organizations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. 2. To study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the functioning of the International Olympic system components. 3. To highlight the problems of working of international sports organizations during COVID-19 pandemic. 4. To identify ways of overcoming the problems of international sports organizations during COVID-19 pandemic. The object of research is the distinctiveness of the functioning of international sports organizations in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The subject of research is the problems of functioning of international sports organizations during COVID-19 pandemic and the ways of solving them. Limits of the present studies. One of the limitations of the studies is the small amount of literature that exists on the subject of the study. Since the COVID-19 pandemic has existed in the world for only 2 years, the amount of scientific literature cannot fully satisfy the needs of the researcher. Thus, filling in the gap in the existing literature will show the practical significance of this study. Moreover, the time during which the study is carried out is too limited and cannot fully reveal the goal set of the research, because in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation in the world has become too volatile and the results of the study may lose their relevance after a very short period of time. Research questions: 1. What impact has the COVID-19 pandemic had on sports organizations? 2. What are the most common problems in the functioning of sports organizations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic? 3. How have various improvements affected the performance of sports organizations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic?