The US Center for SafeSport — established by the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017 — is, depending on how one squints, either a successful institutional response to systemic abuse in Olympic-stream sport or a private regulator with insufficient due-process protections, inconsistent investigation quality, and uneven federation cooperation.
Both views have evidence. The reform legislation pending in the 119th Congress (most visibly, the proposed Empower SafeSport Act revisions) would tighten federation cooperation obligations, formalise investigation timelines, expand the Center's funding base beyond the USOPC, and address the due-process critiques surfaced in litigation including Doe v. USA Gymnastics and the broader Nassar litigation aftermath.
The non-US institutional landscape is patchier. UK Sport's Sport Integrity Service launched in 2023 with a narrower remit. Canada's Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC) operates within the Abuse-Free Sport program but covers only national-team-level athletes within signatory federations — a coverage gap the Future of Sport in Canada Commission's 2025 interim report flagged as a structural problem.