A better look at conflict within sport today

1. Conflict in Sports Today
A look at the Conflict Management process in sports
Joseph Okaiye

2. Article Overview
• An article from applied sport psychology provides a brief overview of organization’s
processes to identifying and resolving conflicts in sports
• This sport psychology organization is seem to be held on a platform for other
organizations to model, in terms of how they operate as managerial. They serve as a
mediating tool that assesses many aspects of not only team conflict, but conflict on all
platforms.
• This article identifies some typical issues that tend to arise within many sport
organizations. These issues tend to be categorized as hazing/bullying, retention of
athletes, severe legal issues, team politics and organizational issues

3. Article Overview Cont.
• The article also pinpoints many consequences of conflict that isn’t resolved:
• Ruined reputations, detrimental blows to management, culture erosion, and
balance within the organization issues.

4. Article Overview Cont.
 Sport Psychology group implements conflict
management systems/training to all of its members,
also incorporating accountability for the team as a
whole. These tactics help their team guide sport
organizations towards resolving conflict.
 The team holds its values for framework,
implementing a conflict management system that
analyzes things such as:
 Manageable resources, team/organizational goals,
success that follows accountability, and structure that
stems from fundamental structures instilled by the
organization or team.

5. Levels of Organizational Conflict
 According to the text, Organizational Communication: Approaches and
Processes, by Katherine Miller, There are a variety of levels that distinguish
organizational conflict.
 Interpersonal: the individual members of the organization perceive goal
incapability.
 Intergroup: considers aggregates of people within an organization, work
teams, departments, as parties in the conflict.
 Inter-organizational: disputes between two or more organizations. The kind
that can involve some form of competition in the marketplace.

6. Phases of Organizational Conflict
 According to the text, Katherine Miller defines five phases of Organizational Conflict.
 Latent conflict: Parties interact in interdependent relationships, making incompatible
goals impossible.
 Perceived conflict: At least one of the parties realize that their situation is
characterized by incapability and interdependence.
 Felt conflict: parties personalize perceived conflict by focusing on the conflict.
Conflict management strategies begin being planned.
 Manifest conflict: this is the communication aspect of the conflict amongst parties.
They implement their own personal strategies when interacting about the issue.
 Conflict aftermath: whether the conflict is resolved or not, there will be either
positive or negative consequences from the conflict. It affects the individual,
relationship and the organization.

7. Real-Life Examples
 I will illustrate some real-life examples of sport conflict to illustrate how situations
went about in the five phases of conflict, defined by Katherine Miller
 The type of issue
 Sample framework for a conflict management system
 Return on investments
 Consequences for conflict not being resolved

8. FIFA Corruption Case
 In 2015, U.S. federal prosecutors disclosed cases of corruption by officials and
associates connected with FIFA. The governing body of association football, futsal
and beach soccer.
 Near the end of may 2015, 14 people were indicted in connection with an
investigation by the united states Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the internal
revenue service criminal investigation division into wire fraud, racketeering, and
money laundering.

9. FIFA Corruption Case cont.
 In total, 7 current FIFA officials were arrested at the hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich on
may 27th. The officials were preparing to attend the 65th FIFA congress, which was
scheduled to include the election of the president of FIFA. They are expected to be
extradited to the united states on suspicion of receiving $150 million in bribes.

10. FIFA Corruption Case Phases of
Conflict
 Phase #1- Latent conflict: there are several phases of this conflict. First, the officials
regarding the highly popularized FIFA world cup game, were already suspect of
receiving outside assistance in terms of bribes, purposely misjudging play calls,
ejecting players with harsh regulations, based on their commitment to outside
sources.
 Phase #2 Perceived conflict: FIFA, just like the rest of the public, began to get word
of the reports that the scheduled games were not going to turn out how they
should’ve, at the hands of the officials in schedule for the 2015 FIFA world cup game.

11. FIFA Corruption Case Phases of Conflict
 Phase #3 Felt conflict: Although not certain FIFA as a whole
was in on the whole scheme, the organization hires private
investigators to judge the incident at hand, possibly find the
source and track forward from then on.
 Phase #4 Manifest conflict: with the help of the media and
press alike, FIFA had provided the public with incentives for
their own insight on the case, throughout the investigation.
 Phase #5 Conflict aftermath: sometime after the whole ordeal,
the accused tried to appeal their judgments, and FIFA
organization to suspend the suspects for life, as well as
sentencing upon full conformation. They argued that the lack
of evidence about what was going on at the time, suggested
bribery wouldn’t be penalized, which ultimately didn’t uphold
in court.

12. Corruption Case Conflict Sport Psych
 This significant issue was an organization, as well as global rule violation that initially
was fueled by greed, suspicion and rumor. Later heightened to a serious legal issue
where it went to court.
 There was a multitude of consequences if FIFA decided to let the conflict slip under
the rug, perhaps if that happened, the organization wouldn’t be what it is today.
 FIFA suffered a damaged reputation for not getting the conflict settled before the
infamous world cup game, the biggest tournament in sports today.

13. Corruption Case Conflict Sport Psych
 Potential Conflict Management System framework:
 Goals: to make sure everyone involved in FIFA organization, officials and all, subject to
the FIFA org rules, as well as global norms/rules that follow professional games.
 Processes and structure: how the governing body of FIFA should go about monitoring
suspicious behaviors, investigating conflict before the big stage arrives.
 Resources: FIFA and all of its members, officials, governing body, fans and sponsors, need
to keep the worlds most beautiful game alive and moving forward for years to come.
 Success and accountability: online time will tell if FIFA learned from this unfortunate
mishap, so it doesn’t ever disrupt the worlds most popularized game.

14. STOP AND THINK!
In what ways can we improve sports?

15. Tom Brady & The Infamous Deflate-Gate!!
 In the 2015 NFL AFC championship
game, there were reports released
that accused the New England
Patriots of intentionally deflating
game balls, which ultimately is a
violation of the NFL protocol.
 News that New England deflated the
visiting team of Indianapolis colts,
and went to win the super bowl two
weeks later in a more-so
controversial fashion.
 The idea for a deflated football, is for
better grip, especially in harsh
conditions such as the bitter cold.

16. Deflate-Gate Phases of Conflict
 Phase #1 Latent conflict: point blank, Tom felt like he wouldn’t be able to win with
his on skill and talents from his team alone, he felt like he needed to get the upper
hand/advantage over his opponent, to solidify his position in the super bowl.
 Phase #2 Perceived conflict: The NFL started to get word of the reports that the
game balls for the AFC title game were deflated in the second half of the game, at
the hands of the new England patriots.
 According to an ESPN article published, the Indianapolis defenders got their hands
on the balls and told their managers and staff that the footballs felt like they were
deflated.

17. Deflate-Gate Continued
 Phase #3 Felt conflict: the NFL hired a team to
conduct a further investigation on the deflated
football scheme, NFL commissioner will have
planned potential penalties and consequences
for New England
 Phase #4 Manifest conflict: after the league
revealed its findings on the case, the patriots
were fined $1 million and sought to suspend
Brady for the first 4 games of the coming season
 Phase #5 Conflict aftermath: Brady and the NFL
decided to appeal the decision of his
suspension, argued that they had no prior
knowledge of the incident, saying that it was
unfair to solely penalize him for this action. This
lead Brady to win the case and avoid suspension

18. REVIEW
 The types of conflict that tend to arise in sport vary in severity, content, and
consequence.
 Some smaller scale issues include: individual issues, team/organizational issues.
 Some larger scale issues include: global distrust, ruined reputations, terrorist attacks.
 Katherine Millers 5 phases of organizational conflict are evident in almost every
organization, the problem is that not every organization knows how to combat their
conflict in a positive way.
 Conflict is neither good nor bad, it is what we decide to make of it. It can motivate
us to grow stronger, and become a better version of ourselves day by day.

19. WORK CITED
 http://espn.go.com/blog/new-england-patriots/post/_/id/4782561/timeline-of-
events-for-deflategate-tom-brady
 http://www.appliedsportpsych.org/resource-center/resources-for-
coaches/coaching-through-conflict-effective-communication-strategies/
 http://sportsconflict.org/sports-conflict-in-the-news/
 Miller, Katherine. Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes.
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub., 1999. Print.