The social protection of Olympic elite athletes in Europe: a human right trapped between international commitment and domestic institutionalisation?

Elite athletes in Olympic sports are particularly vulnerable and may face specific social protection risks as their activities are often marked by high levels of physical and mental stress in an environment of subordination that is dominated by Sport Governing Bodies. Following reports of tragic accidents, abuse, missing maternity protection, and insufficient pension payments, the need to increase social protection standards for elite athletes has been highlighted by international policy makers and academics alike. While, overall, an elite athlete’s individual social protection situation may be complex, especially in the absence of worker status under national law, systematic knowledge about their actual entitlements or access routes to applicable measures is limited. Expanding upon the EU-funded “SOPROS”-project, this article, therefore, aspires to contribute towards developing a normative-empirical framework for the conceptualisation and evaluation of the institutionalisation of social protection measures for elite athletes at the domestic level. Firstly, based on relevant international legal and policy frameworks, social protection is conceptualised as a human right to which all elite athletes are entitled, irrespective of their legal status under a contract or national law, their nationality or gender. Secondly, through the lens of S. Lagoutte’s multidimensional concept of a National Human Rights System, document analysis across six European countries reveals considerable protection gaps and a high degree of fragmentation in the domestic institutionalisation of elite athletes’ social protection. Related shortcomings and national peculiarities are marked by a lack of human rights-based approaches, a varying degree of state-centrism, and limited transnational coordination.