Patrick Clastres

Pierre de Coubertin: The Inventor of the Olympic Tradition

Clastres focuses on Pierre de Coubertin’s strategies to re-establish the Olympic Games “in a modern form”, to win and hold onto the International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidency for 30 years, and to forge and spread his conception of “Olympism”. He rejects any view of Pierre de Coubertin as a manager and “social marketer” because these concepts are anachronistic. For Coubertin, new elites could arise thanks to sport only if they accepted the values and principles of the aristocracy: belief in the idea of a natural elite, mutual respect between equals, pushing one’s limits, chivalric bravery and a taste for art and literature. The influx of sportsmen was aimed at helping them the traditional elites regain the influence they had lost due to the rise of the nouveau-riche bourgeoisie.

Introduction: Becoming a Global Sport Leader

Clastres & Bayle offer here a synthesis of the individual careers of the fifteen global sport leaders (GSL) portrayed in this book. They also connect their management methods to diplomatic, political and economical contexts. Clearly age is more an advantage than a barrier. Cooption and patronage also helped these GSL to come through great crises but tended to encourage a culture of conservatism and, in some cases, nepotism. If experience as an elite athlete has become a distinct advantage, a large proportion of sport’s leaders have been lawyers by training. Some have managed to combine their ascent through the ranks of sports administration with a political career. Clastres & Bayle then discuss how these bodies have been presided almost exclusively by men and Europeans.