ABSTRACT
The fair play concept has been an integral part of the sporting ethos. It has its roots in nineteenth-Century English school sport, where sport was seen as a vehicle for building character and leadership. It was quickly diffused to the public school system of colonial Australia (Stewart, 1992). It also became part of the amateur value system that underpinned sporting practice in general and the Olympic games in particular (Cashman, 1995). However, as indicated in Chapter 1, the amateur ideal was overwhelmed by the forces of commercialism during the 1970s and 1980s. More recently the fair play concept has been resurrected in response to drug use, the barriers faced by athletes with disabilities, discrimination, sexual harassment, and the ugly parent syndrome in children’s sport. This chapter will address some of these issues through a selection of case studies that cover anti-doping policy, anti-harassment policy, indigenous sport policy and disability policy.
