Play the Game (NGO)

Play the Game is an international initiative and conference under the auspices of the Danish Institute for Sports Studies which aims to strengthen sport's ethical foundation and promote democracy, transparency and freedom of expression in sport. "Play the Game" is both the name given to the organisation and its biennial conferences. It has been described as a "watchdog that values integrity in both sport and the journalists that cover it". Play the Game is headquartered in the Danish city of Aarhus and is supported by yearly grants from the Danish Ministry of Culture through the Danish Institute for Sports Studies.

The initiative was founded in 1997, when the Danish Gymnastics and Sports Associations (DGI) celebrated the centenary of its sports political weekly magazine, Ungdom & Idræt (Youth & Sport). To mark the event, DGI hosted an international media seminar on sports politics, called "Sport, Media and Civil Society" at its headquarters in Vingsted. The conference resulted in the formation of the Sports Intelligence Unit, an international network of journalists, sportsmen and women and sports administrators which was dissolved in 2004 as Play the Game was established as an independent institution with the backing of all major domestic sports organisations and the Danish Ministry of Culture. The institution came into being at a time when the extent of corruption and doping in sport, especially professional cycling, was becoming increasingly apparent, and doping, corruption and match-fixing remain some of its core themes.

Play the Game is represented in the European Union's Expert Group on Good Governance in Sports, established by the Council of Ministers, as well as the Consultative Committee of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport under the Council of Europe. It was invited to give testimony before the German Parliament in September 2011, the European Parliament in December 2012 and the Commonwealth Advisory Body on Sport in June 2013.

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