Derek Casey was born and educated in Scotland. In 1978-79, as a Scottish Sports Council Officer together with Mike Hornby, he was closely involved in ‘A Question of Balance’, a major survey of Scottish Sports Centres (see Chapter 6 – 6.2.1). Later, as the Chief Executive of the Sports Council and Sport England from 1994 to 2001, Derek had responsibility for the establishment of the Sports Lottery Fund in the UK. This included the construction of community and national facilities and funding and support in the fields of sports medicine, science and coaching. This provided the basis for the UK’s success in Olympics and Paralympics in Athens, Beijing and London. Until November 2007 he was Bid Director and successful in bringing the 2014 Commonwealth Games – the second largest multi-sports event in the world – to Glasgow in Scotland.

He has held numerous international offices. Among others, Derek has been the Chair of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Development of Sport, a member of the IOC’s Anti-doping Committee and the Co-Chair of the International Working Group on Drug Abuse in Sport. He has been and remains adviser on sports policy and development in several countries especially in Africa. He stepped down after eight years as Chair of UK Youth which provides a variety of opportunities for, often disaffected, young people to participate in non-formal education opportunities. He became President of Youth Scotland which performs similar functions.

He retired as the Chair of the Board of the World Leisure Organization in autumn 2013 but was appointed the WLO’s first ever Chair Emeritus. He holds several non-Executive Director positions in a range of different organisations. He has honorary doctorates from the University of Southampton, University of Strathclyde and University of Stirling in the UK. Honorary Fellowship from the University of Stirling and is a guest professor to Universities in several countries. He has recently been elected as a Senior Fellow of the American Leisure Academy. He is the author of numerous reports and papers on all aspects of sport, leisure and recreation including the economics of major events, venues development, school sport and policy formulation.