How can we get to know local governance of sports? – A case study in a Lagged region

This paper aims to produce some new knowledge on local sport in a lagged region of Portugal – Guarda.Considering sport as a relevant social phenomenon while it allocates public funding and has important mediaimpact, we need to know better how the sport institutions and clubs develop and finance their projects in order toproduce better collective actions. In this paper we study Guarda County and understood how its 26’s entities(Local municipality and School Sport Team, 7 federated sport associations, 5 schools and 13 volunteer privateclubs) organize and finance sports activities. After a reflective characterization of the public expenditure and costcalculus of some sport activities we concluded some of the most relevant clubs in number of practitioners are notthe most costly activities. The Municipality plays a determinant role in the sport structure but other entities valuemore the Public School Team for sport development. Soccer continues to play a central role in those entities livesbut Judo, Handball, Volleyball and Athletics are raising their prestige.