The administration of sport in Australia
Before 1976, Australian sport was run along traditional British lines with autonomous sporting organisations and received no direct funding form the federal government.
Failure at the Montreal Olympics led to a national outcry and spurred the national government to fund and organise elite sport. The Australian government undertook a thorough review of Australian sport and looked at other sporting systems around the world-specifically at the ‘gold medal factories’ of East Germany. The conclusion to this review was that Australia needed to develop an elite academy system where its best athletes could train and prepare without worries about funding and finding accommodation. The other main conclusion was the need for a central, federal overview of sport. The result was the setting up of the Australian Institution of sport (AIS), which was shortly followed by the Australian Sports Commission (ASC), the government responsible for coordinating the government’s sport programmes.
