Antonio Silva, the President of European Aquatics, shared deep insights on the challenges and opportunities facing sports organizations today. During a panel discussion curated by SIGA and moderated by Katie Simmonds, SIGA’s Chief Commercial Officer, at Cityscape/ESTAAD Conference in Ryiadh, Saudi Arabia, he spoke about integrity, transparency, and community engagement. Those values are central to SIGA’s mission of promoting excellence off the pitch to enhance performance on it.
Silva, who is also a member of the SIGA Council, emphasized the importance of broadening sports participation by attracting athletes, partners, and supporters, highlighting credibility as the cornerstone of sustainable growth in sports. He advocated for governance reforms that foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and integrity, citing European Aquatics’ successful implementation of gender balance in leadership roles and technical committees. This effort aligns with SIGA’s standards and certification process, which seeks to provide sports organizations with independent validation of their governance practices to ensure accountability and build stakeholder trust, as flagged by António Silva, under whose leadership European Aquatics achieved Bronze SIRVS certification for Good Governance in Sport:
“For us, it was very important to put our organization at a high level of trust, transparency, and integrity. We implemented new procedures and policies to ensure good governance and to gain credibility. Certification and independent assessment were important to ensure our sustainability initiatives were real and not just marketing. We introduced in our constitution that at least 40% of our board and committees must be women. Now, at least 50% of our technical committees are women. We created networks to help more women become leaders, at both national and continental levels.
European Aquatics started a strategic plan for diversity, equity, inclusion, and integrity. Last year, 70% of our national commission members were from diverse backgrounds. Every year we hold a Diversity and Inclusion conference with our Congress.
Integrity and credibility are essential. SIGA’s Independent Rating and Verification System (SIRVS) helps to show that governance is taken seriously and processes are implemented to protect the organization from financial and reputational risk.”
Adding a football context to this governance dialogue, Katie Reed, General Counsel at Tottenham Hotspur, shared how the club manages some of the biggest challenges in modern football — chiefly financial sustainability and ethical commercial practices. Tottenham navigates complex regulatory landscapes while diversifying revenue streams through stadium events, including high-profile boxing matches, and strategic partnerships with the NFL and Formula One to maintain competitive and financial balance.
Reed also highlighted Tottenham’s strong commitment to community engagement and diversity, supporting programs that extend beyond sport into education, employability, and health. The club’s incorporation of inclusive leadership and mentorship initiatives resonates with the broad governance principles Antonio Silva champions at the European level.
This intersection of perspectives from a leading aquatics executive and football club legal leadership reinforces the shared responsibility across sports to uphold good governance. Their approaches illuminate the pathway for sports organizations globally to embrace transparency, inclusivity, and robust stakeholder engagement as the foundation for future success.
Katie Reed key ideas:
“One of the biggest challenges for us is achieving genuine financial sustainability without undermining competitiveness. At Tottenham Hotspur, we have a number of diversified revenue streams including third-party events at our stadium – we had the Eubank boxing fight literally on Saturday. We’ve had 23 non-football events at our stadium this year alone and that’s a key strategic partnership with the National Football League (NFL), and also a 15-year partnership with Formula One. So we genuinely focus on financial sustainability by having those diversified revenue streams. Clubs must manage profit and sustainability rules – the regulatory landscape is ever more complex in the Premier League, with rising wage and transfer costs and global ownership structures becoming even more complex to manage.
Tottenham Hotspur places the local community at the center of everything we do. On the pitch, there is a strong commitment to high performance, integrity, and nurturing talent. Our men’s head coach, Thomas Fran, and our women’s head coach, Martin Park, both share the same values around nurturing young talent. Off the pitch, we invest in our community through programmes in education, employability, and health. Our foundation is always out there in the community. Being a social beacon is key – it’s not enough for us to just be a sporting organization.
It’s about embedding ethical standards into commercial decision making. My team is responsible for legal, financial sustainability, and reputational due diligence before any partnership conversation. We prioritize partnerships that align with the club’s values.”
Katie Simmonds concluded the fireside chat with a call to action to the sports industry: “Invest in Integrity.”
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ABOUT SIGA
SIGA is the world’s leading organisation for Sport Integrity. We are creating a whole new landscape for the sports industry by delivering independent global rating and certification for world Sport to ensure it is governed and operates under the highest integrity standards: The SIGA Universal Standards.
Funded by our Members, SIGA is a non for profit global independent organisation with one aim: To ensure the sport industry is governed under the highest integrity standards so that the values of sport are protected.
SIGA is the only organisation to bring together sport, governments, academia, international organisations, sponsors, business, rights holders, NGOs and professional services companies, from every region in the world, around a common cause of fostering greater integrity throughout sport.
SIGA is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, as a non for-profit association, and comprises of the following continental subsidiaries: SIGA AMERICA, SIGA EUROPE and SIGA LATIN AMERICA.
For more information on SIGA, including its vision, mission and reform agenda, please refer to the website: www.siga-sport.com and FAQs.
To contact SIGA, please email: comms@siga-sport.com.
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