Sri Sri Ravi Shankar raises mental health, ethics concerns at sports leadership summit

Amid rising concerns over ethical breaches in the world of sports, the 7th World Summit on Ethics and Leadership in Sports convened leading voices from across the globe to explore whether success can truly endure when values are compromised. Organized by the World Forum for Ethics in Business (WFEB), the summit brought together athletes, politicians, business leaders, academics, and changemakers for critical discussions on integrity, performance, and leadership.

The summit addressed pressing issues such as gender parity, mental health, performance enhancement, and the role of sports in peace-building and social change. Highlighting how sportsmanship can shape ethical leadership beyond the field, sessions explored the crossover between athletic values, fair play, resilience, team spirit and their impact on politics, governance, and business.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, in his keynote, emphasized the deeper purpose of sport: “In sports, you either win or make others win. The act of playing itself brings joy. When we forget this, sporting arenas turn violent,” he said and questioned why, despite the natural joy of sports, loneliness and depression remain rampant globally.

Other prominent voices included 17-year-old mountaineering prodigy Kaamya Karthikeyan, Olympic gold medalist Kevin Young, Ukraine MP Svyatoslav Yurash, and Palestinian football pioneer Honey Thaljieh, who noted, “Performance without purpose is hollow. True success is not just about trophies, but the lives we lift.”

A thought-provoking session on the emergence of the “Enhanced Games” where athletes use performance enhancers under supervision sparked intense debate around the boundaries of human potential and ethical collapse.

Recognitions included Xherdan Shaqiri for his commitment to integration and intercultural dialogue, and Swiss rower Jeannine Gmelin for her advocacy of mental health and fairness in sports.

With global partnerships across institutions like FIFA, the UN, and the European Parliament, WFEB continues to assert that ethics and excellence must go hand in hand; not just in sport, but in life.