Investigation and Sanctions in Grassroots Sport: Due Process for Volunteers

A netball club in suburban Melbourne received a complaint about a coach. Inappropriate language during training. Not directed at a specific player - general aggression, yelling, swearing. Two parents raised it independently with the club secretary within the same week.

The secretary told the president. The president spoke to the coach informally, at the next training session, in the car park. The coach said it was taken out of context. The president accepted that explanation and told the secretary it was handled.

Neither parent was told the outcome. No record was made. No one checked whether the behaviour changed. Six weeks later, one of the parents pulled their child from the club. The other lodged a formal complaint with the state body, citing the club's failure to act.

The club had not failed to act. It had acted - just without any process, documentation, or accountability.

The missing link

The Good Governance in Grassroots Sport project, led by ISCA and Transparency International Germany, structures governance enforcement as a chain with three links: Whistleblowing, Investigation, Sanctions. We have covered whistleblowing - the channels through which concerns are raised. This article is about what happens after someone reports.

The ISCA guidelines are direct: "If any incident - or the suspicion of it - occurs a consequent approach including investigation and - if appropriate - sanctions is decisive."

That word "consequent" is doing critical work. It does not mean harsh. It means following a defined sequence. One step leads to the next. The process is known in advance. Each step is documented. The outcome is proportionate and defensible.

Most grassroots sport organisations have whistleblowing systems that range from informal to non-existent. But even those that have built proper reporting channels often have nothing on the other side. A complaint arrives. Then what?

How investigations actually happen (and why it fails)

In the majority of community sport clubs, the investigation process looks like this: the chair asks a committee member to "look into it." That committee member talks to the parties involved, forms an opinion, and reports back to the chair. The chair makes a decision. The decision may or may not be communicated to the person who reported, the person who was reported, or the wider committee.

This fails for four specific reasons.

Lack of independence. The person investigating is often a friend or fellow volunteer of the person being investigated. In a committee of six, genuine independence is structurally impossible. Both parties know this. Neither trusts the outcome.

Lack of documentation. The conversation happens in a car park or at the pub. No notes. No written findings. Two years later, when the same issue recurs, there is no record of what was investigated or concluded.

Lack of procedural fairness. The accused may not be told what they are accused of. They may not get a chance to respond. In some cases, a decision is made without the accused knowing an investigation occurred - they just notice they are no longer rostered.

Lack of proportionality. Without a sanctions framework, the response depends on who is on the committee that year and how they feel about the person. The same behaviour might result in a conversation in one case and exclusion in another.

Prof. Antonio Borgogni at the University of Cassino, who contributed to the ISCA dilemma case research, has emphasised that contextual decision-making is inevitable in grassroots sport. Every situation is different. But contextual decision-making within a framework is governance. Contextual decision-making without a framework is improvisation. And improvisation, when it involves sanctions against individuals, creates legal and reputational risk.

What a proper process needs

A club does not need a 50-page disciplinary procedure. It needs a process that covers six elements. Not five. Not seven. Six, and all of them matter.

Written terms of reference. Write down what is being investigated, who is investigating, the scope, and the timeline. Fifteen minutes. Prevents scope creep and avoidance.

Independence. The investigator must not have a relationship with either party that compromises objectivity. In a small club, this may mean bringing in a past president or someone from the state body. Independence is harder in small organisations. That makes it more important, not less.

Opportunity to respond. The accused must know the specific allegation, see the evidence, and provide their account. This is fundamental to natural justice. A decision made without hearing from the accused is indefensible.

Documented findings. A written summary: facts established, evidence relied upon, mitigating circumstances, recommendation. This is the institutional record.

Proportionate sanctions. An outcome that fits the finding, based on a framework that distinguishes levels of breach and response.

Right of appeal. A mechanism to challenge the decision - an appeal to the full committee or to the state body, communicated at the time the sanction is imposed.

The sanctions question

This is where grassroots sport differs fundamentally from professional contexts. You cannot fire a volunteer. There is no employment contract to terminate. The sanctions available are specific to the volunteer and membership context, and each needs clear criteria for when it applies.

Formal warning. Written, documented, specifying the behaviour and the expected change. For first-time, minor breaches.

Suspension from role. Removed from coaching, committee, or coordination duties for a defined period. They remain a member. For repeated minor breaches or a single significant one.

Removal from committee. Requires a constitutional process - most constitutions specify how. The process must follow the constitution exactly. Anything less creates grounds for challenge.

Exclusion from membership. The most severe sanction, reserved for serious breaches - fraud, safeguarding violations, violence, sustained harassment. Also requires constitutional authority.

Each sanction must be documented: finding, sanction, reasons, appeal mechanism, date. This is the evidence that the decision was made properly, through a defined process.

When the club fails to act

This is the federation dimension. A complaint is made. The club does not investigate, or investigates inadequately, or reaches a decision that the complainant believes is wrong. What happens next?

In a well-structured federation, the state body has constitutional authority to intervene. This might mean conducting its own investigation, overriding the club's decision, or imposing sanctions that the club was unwilling to impose. Sport England's Code for Sports Governance expects funded bodies to have exactly this capability - oversight mechanisms that ensure governance failures at the club level can be addressed at a higher level.

But constitutional authority is meaningless without visibility. A state body cannot intervene in a situation it does not know about. If a complaint is made to a club and the club handles it badly - or ignores it entirely - the state body has no way of knowing unless the complainant escalates, which many do not.

This is where governance technology becomes structural rather than administrative. TidyConnect provides the documentation layer that makes investigation processes visible across a federation. When a complaint is logged, the state body can see that it exists. When an investigation is conducted, the findings are recorded in a system that persists beyond the current committee. When a sanction is imposed, the audit trail shows what process was followed, what evidence was considered, and what decision was reached.

This matters most during committee turnover. A disciplinary matter that spans two committee cycles - and many do - cannot rely on verbal handovers. The new chair needs to see the complaint, the investigation report, the sanction, any appeal, and any ongoing conditions. Without that documentation, they either re-investigate from scratch (wasting time and re-traumatising the complainant) or drop the matter entirely (failing the complainant and enabling the behaviour).

The volunteer context

The people running these processes are volunteers. Not lawyers. Not HR professionals. People who put their hand up at an AGM because nobody else would.

Not every complaint needs a full process. A parent raising a concern about a coach's tone might be resolved with a conversation and a monitoring period. But the moment a complaint could result in someone losing their role, their committee position, or their membership - due process kicks in. They have a right to know the allegation, respond to it, and appeal the outcome.

That is not corporate bureaucracy applied to a volunteer context. That is basic fairness.

The documentation imperative

The ISCA guidelines are consistent: "the handling of a conflict of interest has to be documented in the minutes/files." The same principle applies to every investigation and sanction.

Documentation serves accountability - a documented decision can be reviewed when challenged. It serves continuity - the committee that made the decision will not be there in two years. And it serves consistency - documented precedent prevents both under-reaction and over-reaction.

Without documentation, every case is handled as if it were the first. Every challenged decision comes down to "we thought it was the right thing to do" - which is not a defence.

Making it real

If you are on a club committee, here is what you can do this month. Write a one-page investigation procedure: who investigates, how the accused is informed, what happens with findings, what sanctions are available, and how to appeal. Create a sanctions table: type of breach, possible sanctions, process required. Agree that every investigation produces a written finding stored centrally - not on someone's personal laptop.

And if you are at a state body - check whether your clubs have any of this. If they don't, the complaints will eventually land at your door.

The ISCA systematic approach puts whistleblowing, investigation, and sanctions together for a reason. A reporting channel without investigation is a suggestion box. An investigation without sanctions is theatre. Sanctions without due process are punishment.

Build the full chain. Document every link.

References

• ISCA & Transparency International Germany. Guidelines for Good Governance in Grassroots Sport (PDF). Investigation and Sanctions.
• Sport Resolutions. Sport Resolutions. UK independent dispute resolution.
• CAS. Court of Arbitration for Sport.
• Sport Integrity Australia. Sport Integrity Australia. Investigation frameworks.
• UK Government. Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.
• SIGA. Sport Integrity Global Alliance.