Board chairs description of and role in (good?)democratic governance

Democracy is a central part of the governance system for Swedish sport organisations, including sportsclubs. Sport clubs are non-profit and membership-based organisations where everyone must be allowedmembership and all members must be allowed to participate and have democratic influence. The board,chosen by the members, must protect the interests of the members. Also, sports clubs should begoverned according to good governance to be efficient, sustainable and to create democratic decisionmaking processes and thus considered legitimate by society. The board chair has the primaryresponsibility for the governing of the clubs where 3 million swedes are members. Even so, there is alack of research on board chairs in local sport organisations. Therefore, the aim of this study is toexamine how sports clubs' internal governance and democracy processes work from the perspective ofboard chairs. The data was generated through interviews by eight board chairs from various sports clubs.The results showed that the board chairs try to listen to members but lacks strategies. It also shows thatmembers do not fully use their power to influence the governance of their clubs. One conclusion is thatmany democratic processes were handled in the clubs, but it is sometimes difficult for the board chairsto explain what democracy really means or entails. Another conclusion is that the board chairs have alot of power, but within certain limits due to formal governing mechanisms. Their views on power andinfluences varies but nonetheless seems to have great influences the club. To some extent the clubsshowed good example of democratic governance, but further research is needed to examine the overallstatus on good democratic governance of sport clubs.