Government policy responses to Covid-19 in sport: a comparative study of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, UK and the USA

Abstract The unprecedented abrupt stop of sport as a form of leisure and business activity causes by the Covid-19 pandemic urged re-examination of how we think and practice sport. Given the leading role of national governments in handling the health crisis, it is of critical importance to understand what policy actions have been implemented to sustain sport and its contribution to society. This is the first study to critically compare the government responses to Covid-19 in sport in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, UK and the USA. It addresses the question how national governments use policy instruments to affect the governance, access to and consumption of sport during the pandemic. Regardless of ideological persuasions, the five governments framed exercise and sport as critical for personal and social wellbeing and as an antidot to the pandemic. This recognition of the role of sport was not matched with the same level of policy capacity to support the sector. Governments in all five countries have favoured elite over community sport. The directions and limits of central government interventions in sport depend on both the system of government and the ways that governments choose to engage with sport systems. It is not merely a matter of the overall degree of government centralization. The ways that governments can and do respond in a sport emergency are consequently dependent on the systems in place prior to the emergency.