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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The West African sports official: an insider's view of sports administration
Author:Beek, Walter E.A. vanISNI
Year:2013
Periodical:Paideuma (ISSN 0078-7809)
Volume:59
Pages:77-101
Language:English
Geographic term:West Africa
Subjects:games
sports associations
management
patronage
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/24672380
Abstract:Using his own experience as a sports administrator, the author describes the organizational culture of West African sports. As a cultural anthropologist and draughts player, the author has been President of the Fédération Mondiale du Jeu de Dame for eleven years, followed by four years as Executive Vice-President of the Confédération Africaine du Jeu de Dames. Using a series of first-hand cases, five major principles of 'management culture' or 'board-room culture' are distinguished that seem to inform the way in which power is handled in West African sports. These principles include: personal presence, the primacy of the official, the importance of board positions, the personalization of power, and the use of the past to legitimize the present. In all of them, the small world of draughts offers an insiders' view of the relationship between notions of power, the politicization of sports and the processes of neopatrimonialism that inform African politics in general. The article concludes with some thoughts on the cutural specificity of these processes in West Africa and on te position of sports in the wider African society. [Journal abstract]
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