World Athletics retains top position in the latest ASOIF Review

World Athletics has retained its position in the highest governance band in the fifth review conducted by the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF).

This continues the organisation's impressive progress, having advanced from the A2 to the A1 band in the previous review two years ago.

The latest review, published this week, confirms World Athletics's place in the top tier alongside six other international sports federations.

Over the past eight years, World Athletics has prioritised enhancing its governance, structures, and processes. Significant constitutional changes were introduced in 2017 and 2019 to meet modern governance standards for global organizations.

These changes included the establishment of the Athletics Integrity Unit, the implementation of vetting and disciplinary procedures, the inclusion of athlete representation on the ruling Council, and efforts to promote gender equality through the Gender Leadership Taskforce.

A notable achievement was the early fulfilment of a reform requirement to have 13 members of each gender elected to the World Athletics Council by 2027, a target met last year, four years ahead of schedule.

ASOIF's latest review highlighted World Athletics as an exemplary organisation, recognising its World Plan, annual report, gender balance, integrity investigations, safeguarding measures, Athlete's Commission, publication of open positions, member governance compliance, financial transparency, bid allocation, and data protection.

World Athletics President and ASOIF Council Member Sebastian Coe expressed gratitude to the ASOIF Governance Taskforce for promoting good governance and emphasized his commitment to building on the progress made.

"I am immensely proud to lead an exemplary international federation," Coe stated. "Our recognition as an A1 federation is a testament to the hard work and the long journey World Athletics has undertaken to reach this gold-standard level."

Coe also acknowledged the collective improvement among international federations, noting the significant progress made across the Olympic movement in striving to become models of good governance.

Besides World Athletics, BWF, FIFA, ITF, UCI, FEI and World Rugby also found themselves in the A1 Band of international sports federations.