A new World Players report outlines how contract insecurity, weak social protections, psychosocial risks and barriers to organising rights are becoming increasingly entrenched across professional sport.
World Players has released a new report note examining how precarious work is increasingly shaping employment conditions across professional sport, with risks extending far beyond income insecurity alone.
The report draws on International Labour Organization (ILO), OECD and European Union frameworks, alongside evidence gathered by player associations across multiple sports.
The report argues that while precarious work is widely recognised across global labour markets, it remains systematically underrecognized in sport — despite athletes often experiencing many of the same structural conditions associated with insecure work.
According to the report, athletes frequently operate under short-term and atypical contractual arrangements, with limited control over key aspects of their working environment and reduced access to labour and social protections. The report also highlights how structural features specific to sport — including competition systems, public scrutiny, fragmented governance and highly seasonal careers — can intensify these risks.
The report identifies ten major dimensions through which precarious work manifests in professional sport, including contract insecurity, misclassification, inadequate income, late and non-payment of wages, psychosocial risks, violence and harassment, restricted organising rights and the absence of independent representation.
The report further argues that precarious work conditions can create environments where violence, harassment and abuse are more likely to occur, particularly where athletes face strong economic dependency, short career windows and limited avenues for independent representation.
The report places significant emphasis on the role of player associations in addressing these challenges, including through collective bargaining, strategic legal action, expanding representation models and building stronger evidence bases on athlete working conditions.
It also points to the recently adopted ILO Guidelines for the promotion of fundamental principles and rights at work and the prevention and elimination of violence and harassment for professional athletes as an important international framework for strengthening labour protections in sport.
The report concludes that addressing precarious work in professional sport requires coordinated national and transnational action involving player associations, trade unions and other labour rights actors.
Credit Photo: IMAGO / Bildbyran
