Abstract: This paper refined the "should" face of national single sports associations reform under the perspective of national governance, and reflected its realistic situation and development strategy through the methods of literature, field survey and logical analysis. The results suggest that the reform of project associations from management to governance leads to five major changes in objective, concept, structure, system, and means. In reality, it will encounter such problems as legitimacy, blurred value of reform, rigidity and solidification of the management system, incomplete corporate governance structure, and legislation lagging behind reform. In response to the national governance requirements and social anticipations, we should further clarify the reform objectives of associations' "independent corporate legal entity", strengthen the institutionalized supply; renovate the evaluation mechanism, information-oriented mechanism and the liaison mechanism; transform the "administrative control" to "institutional encompassing", consolidate "the China Sports Association" and "China Olympics Committee", and gradually remove the project centers, and promote the reform of associations step by step; adopt the " Basic Law on Social Organizations" and speeds up the revision of "Sports Law".

Key words: national governance, national single sports association, reform and development, inspection, promotion strategy