Sexual violence in sport: why entrust an independent authority with investigating reports and imposing administrative and disciplinary measures?

On 13 September, La Tribune Dimanche published an op-ed signed by some twenty public figures: presidents of sports federations, a member of the judiciary, a former sports minister, lawyers, heads of child protection charities, and victims who have become campaigners. They propose that investigating reports and imposing administrative or disciplinary measures should be taken away from the federations and entrusted to an independent authority.

• Read the op-ed in La Tribune Dimanche (in French)

I share this analysis. In the interest of full transparency, I should state that Sideline Conseil advises one of the lead signatories on these issues. Here, I would like to take the time to set out what this proposal rests on, what it owes to the work of recent years, the criticism it faces, and why it seems to me to address a problem that neither resources nor goodwill will be enough to solve.

What has already been achieved

French sport is not starting from scratch. In six years, it has built a protection system that many sectors would envy.

A political and media turning point came in early 2020, as public testimonies from victims multiplied, followed by the national convention convened by the ministry. That convention produced the tools that now structure how reports are handled. A national ministerial unit, Signal-Sports, collects alerts; it recorded 872 of them in 2025, up 64% in a year, and this rise reflects not only the scale of the violence but also victims’ growing confidence that they will be heard. Criminal record checks, which used to apply only to professional coaches, were extended to volunteers and then made annual by the Act of 8 March 2024: nearly two million people are now vetted every year. Federations have appointed safeguarding officers and set up specialised committees and protocols.

And a few days ago, the sports movement took a further step. The Fondation pour un sport sans violences (Foundation for Violence-Free Sport), set up by the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF), held its first executive committee meeting on 9 September. Nearly three million euros have been raised, a pool of thirty-two independent investigators has been formed to support federations that lack the necessary in-house expertise, and a committee chaired by a former vice-president of the Conseil d’État will ensure its rigour. It is a serious initiative that meets a real need, and those who have driven it deserve credit.

I want to make this clear, because this is where misunderstandings arise: the proposal for an independent authority does not call this work into question. It draws the conclusions from it.

What a victim goes through today

To understand why this system, for all its progress, still leaves a gap, you have to see it from the point of view of a child or teenager who decides to speak up. What I describe here comes from the feedback of federations, which experience these situations from the inside.

The first person they confide in is often someone close to them. Then come the institutions, and this is where the process can become problematic, because a single report can trigger four separate, insufficiently coordinated procedures: the federation’s, for what are known as sporting or disciplinary sanctions; the State’s; the criminal justice system’s; and even the employer’s, when the person implicated is an employee.

Let us follow the interviews. On the federation side, the victim may be interviewed by their club’s safeguarding officer or by the integrity officer of their regional league or federation, or even by the appointed investigator; then by the disciplinary committee if it so wishes (which, fortunately, is rare); then by the appeals committee if the decision is challenged; possibly by the CNOSF conciliator; and, more rarely, before the administrative court, where proceedings are essentially conducted in writing. On the State side, they may already have given a first account to Signal-Sports (often it is those around them who make the report); they may then be interviewed by the State service in the département responsible for the administrative investigation, and possibly by the committee the prefect consults before imposing a permanent ban. On the criminal justice side, if they lodge a complaint, or if the facts concerning them are reported to the public prosecutor by a third party required to do so under Article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, they may be questioned again during the investigation, undergo a psychological assessment or a forensic medical examination and, if a judicial investigation is opened, be questioned by the investigating judge, sometimes two and a half years after their complaint, as in a case reported in the press this summer. They may then be confronted with the person implicated, then called to testify at trial, and again on appeal. On the employer side, further interviews are possible. If they are a minor, the département’s child protection referral unit (CRIP), child welfare services (aide sociale à l’enfance) and the children’s judge (juge des enfants) may also become involved. And if they wish to be compensated without waiting for the outcome of the trial, or if the perpetrator is insolvent, they may also apply to the Crime Victims’ Compensation Commission (commission d’indemnisation des victimes d’infractions, CIVI), a separate procedure that may involve a further assessment.

Depending on the facts and the authorities involved, these procedures can be opened independently of one another, including without a complaint from the victim, and nothing prevents them from accumulating. In the most complex cases, the victim may therefore have to repeat their account several times, to different adults, in different settings, over several years. These accounts can rarely, if ever, be used in the other proceedings, because of the secrecy of the investigation or, more broadly, because there is no formal mechanism for sharing case files. Child protection professionals know what each repetition costs.

We must be honest about what sometimes happens at the end of this road: the victim no longer has the psychological strength to face these stages. They trusted the institutions, they spoke up, and they give up along the way, feeling that they spoke up for nothing. The most committed federations strive to keep these young people motivated, to secure funding for their legal fees and to stand by them in the face of the reprisals that sometimes come from an entourage, a club or a coach who now knows he has been reported.

Two difficulties make matters worse. The first concerns how testimony is received. Hearing a child who reports sexual violence is a profession in its own right: it requires training, a suitable place, a protocol, and the ability not to distort a testimony, all the more so when it will be used in court. The training of federations’ safeguarding officers, the vast majority of whom are volunteers, is uneven to say the least. They do their best, often with great sensitivity, but they are not equipped for this.

The second concerns investigative powers. On the sports side, those who investigate have no real powers of compulsion: without the consent of the person implicated, they can neither obtain a phone, nor access messages, nor demand a document. Criminal investigators, who have all of these powers, sometimes even ask federations not to intervene so as not to hamper their inquiries… The internal investigation therefore quickly stalls, the file remains thin, and the person implicated stays in post, sometimes in contact with children, until the courts reach a decision, which takes years.

Why this is not primarily a question of resources

This is a point on which I want to try to be precise, because this is where the signatories’ argument could be misunderstood.

The most natural objection is that federations are committed, that the Foundation will provide them with the expertise they lacked, and that it should be given time to make a difference. All of this is true. But it assumes that the problem is one of resources. In fact, the core of the problem lies in the legal framework, and no budget can change that framework.

An investigator provided by the Foundation, however experienced, has no more powers than a volunteer safeguarding officer: they can neither seize nor compel, and they have no access to the evidence in the criminal investigation. Their findings will be ruled on by a disciplinary committee whose members, it should be said, deliberate with complete independence, but to which cases can be referred only by the federation itself, its president or the body it designates, and whose members the federation appoints. It is nonetheless the federation’s leaders, as employer or as the authority issuing the licence, who bear the litigation risk attached to the measures taken, particularly when criminal proceedings later reach a different outcome. Conciliation before the CNOSF will remain a compulsory preliminary step. The prefect will still not be required to give reasons for refusing to impose a ban or for lifting one. And a club that removes a coach as a precaution will still be exposed to claims before the employment tribunal (conseil de prud’hommes). None of this depends on funding allocations or budgets: it all depends on the law.

It will be argued that improvements can be hoped for, and even expected, from the next version of the model disciplinary regulations for federations, the overhaul of which is nearing completion. From what we know, the draft could indeed make it compulsory to investigate every act of violence (and rightly so), allow testimonies to be anonymised, extend investigation deadlines, and make the (anonymised) publication of decisions systematic. Above all, it would strengthen the interim measure: a coach who is implicated could be suspended for up to six months by a reasoned decision and, if criminal proceedings were brought, that suspension could be extended until the court’s final decision.

These would be significant advances if confirmed. But they do not change the nature of the system. They improve how it works within the existing framework, and a decree cannot do more than that.

This framework weighs on federations. They are, of course, expected to be beyond reproach towards victims, who expect a swift decision; towards the people accused, who are entitled to fair treatment; and towards families and the public, who will judge each case by what has been done. They shoulder this responsibility with determination, but also with tools that are not suited to it. Taking investigation and sanctions away from them does not weaken them: it frees them from a difficult, even untenable, position.

A precedent no one questions: the AFLD

Sport has already been through a comparable debate on another issue. Twenty years ago, federations themselves ruled on doping cases involving their own licence holders. The French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) was created in 2006, and in 2019 it was given full disciplinary jurisdiction. Federations ceased to act as judges in this area. Today, no one would consider going back: athletes have gained procedural safeguards, and sport has gained a credibility that its internal bodies could not give it.

This precedent offers more than a principle: it offers an architecture. The Anti-Doping Agency separates a board, which receives reports, investigates and decides whether to bring proceedings, from a separate sanctions committee, which rules on cases. This dual structure is not a refinement: it guarantees that the person who investigates is not the person who passes judgement, and it enables the adjudicating body to build, decision after decision, consistent case law at national level. This is precisely what is missing today when it comes to sexual violence in sport, where dozens of federations issue decisions based on approaches, sanction scales and timeframes that have nothing in common. A single sanctions committee would put an end to this.

The main objections are well known, and they call for answers

This debate is not new. Reservations about an independent authority have been expressed publicly by various public figures. They are serious, and they call for reasoned answers rather than assumptions of bad faith.

Some mechanisms already exist. That is true, and Signal-Sports is one of the most solid achievements of recent years. But a reporting unit collects; it does not decide. The weakness does not lie in how the alert is raised, but in what comes afterwards.

Legislation would take too long. The argument is well founded, and it fully justifies the immediate responses, such as the Foundation, that have been put in place. But it says nothing against the reform itself, unless one takes the view that nothing that takes time should ever be undertaken. A legislative vehicle exists and the debate is already under way.

The presumption of innocence. As soon as it becomes easier to withdraw someone’s authorisation to carry out their role, and therefore to work, before their case has been finally decided, a fundamental principle is at stake. It must be taken fully into account. But it should also be noted that this power already exists: the prefect can already ban someone from carrying out these duties without a conviction, and a federation committee can suspend someone on the basis of a report. The question is therefore not whether to encroach on that principle, but in whose hands to place a power that already exists. And it is precisely because the matter is so serious that it must not be left to well-meaning volunteers or to decisions for which no reasons are given. It must be entrusted to experienced, qualified hands, with all the safeguards of adversarial proceedings: a lawyer, access to the file and the right to appeal to a court. An independent authority would protect the presumption of innocence better than the current system, because it would give it a consistent procedure.

Yet another body. We need to look at what the bill under discussion already creates. Its Article 2 establishes an “Authority for Combating Sexual and Intra-Family Violence”, tasked with assessing the implementation and effectiveness of legislative and regulatory measures. Article 33 sets up a dedicated vetting administration, which will issue certificates and cross-check four databases, and the Government is reportedly considering having it run by a national service (service à compétence nationale). A new body is therefore being created in any case, to handle checks before people take up their posts. The question is not whether to create something, but whether to give it the missing function – investigating and deciding once the person is in post – and in what form. The signatories have proposed a new authority; I believe they would readily accept it being attached to an existing one. What matters is not the form, but independence, investigative powers and procedural safeguards.

Human and financial resources. This is the objection everyone has in mind and, beyond the Prime Minister’s announcements, it calls for a clear answer. Such an authority would need a local presence: a report concerning a club in the Landes cannot be investigated from Paris. But a local presence does not mean creating hundreds of posts from scratch. Today, in the State’s regional and local services, staff for whom this was neither their calling nor their core qualification spend part of their time on these cases, in the fields of sport, youth, culture and education. This workload already exists; it is scattered, poorly accounted for and handled by staff who are not always easy to train. Most of the authority’s resources would come from pooling and professionalising what is already funded, while adding what pooling makes possible: trained investigators, common guidelines, tools. And since this authority would ultimately be expected to cover every setting in which adults supervise minors, the benefits of pooling would come fully into play. The Conseil d’État has warned against specialised bodies without resources; the answer is not to give up on them, but to cost them honestly and to pilot the approach in sport before extending it.

The autonomy and commitment of federations. The doping precedent answers this: transferring a type of case did not diminish them. They would refocus on what only they can do: awareness, training, detection and raising the alert. This is the ground the Foundation has chosen, and it is where their commitment is unmatched.

A context that is changing in any case

Finally, there is a question of timing, whatever one’s views: the law is being reformed.

The private member’s bill on sexual and gender-based violence, tabled on 11 August, completely overhauls the rules on criminal record checks. It will soon be debated in plenary session. The government bill on child protection, currently before the Senate, creates a common regime for all sectors that work with minors: sport, culture, holiday and leisure centres, after-school care and social services. Checks will be based on a unified, coordinated search of several databases and records, supplemented by information passed on by the public prosecution service. The consequences of a disqualification for the employment contract will be written into the Labour Code.

This shift is welcome, and it is coherent. But it does not change what happens in the sectors concerned when a report is made.

What could be put on the table

In practical terms, the signatories raise several avenues for progress that can each be examined on their own.

A single interview with the victim, conducted by trained professionals and recorded, with the recording usable in all proceedings. This is the principle behind the Nordic Barnahus (children’s houses), which France has begun to adopt through its paediatric units for children at risk (unités d’accueil pédiatriques enfance en danger, UAPED).

Sworn investigators with real powers to interview, require documents, access premises and protect witnesses.

A two-tier architecture, on the anti-doping model: a board that investigates and brings proceedings, and a sanctions committee that rules on cases and harmonises practice at national level.

An obligation to state the reasons for every administrative decision, including a refusal to impose a ban or the lifting of one, with notification to the federation and the employer and recognition of their standing to bring proceedings.

Abolishing the conciliation stage for these disputes, as for doping, and as the bill under discussion provides in the case of doctors.

Full safeguards for the person implicated: adversarial proceedings, a lawyer, access to the file and the right of appeal to a court.

Sanctions that are published, harmonised and entered in the national database, so that pre-appointment checks and disciplinary decisions no longer operate in isolation from each other.

Legal certainty for clubs and federations, whose measures would be based on an external, reasoned decision.

But rather than moving forward measure by measure, it is worth noting that a single institution could address all these issues at once: an independent authority with legal personality and investigative powers, organised along the lines of the one sport has established for doping. This explains why the signatories did not present it as one idea among others, but as the missing piece.

What I take from this

I do not claim that this proposal is the only possible way forward, nor that it solves everything. Let us open the debate for the sake of victims. In any event, I note that it is based on documented facts, that it builds on the work already done rather than denying it, that it answers the objections raised against it, and that it comes at a time when Parliament is redrawing the framework within which it would sit.

This autumn’s debate will show whether sport is willing, once again, to accept an outside referee where it has long wanted to remain the sole judge. On doping, it made that choice, and it has not regretted it.