The impact of sport goes well beyond stadiums: it is an activity that we consider as embodying our (arguably) universal values of human excellence, tolerance and fair play. But it can also be an arena for the expression of aggressiveness and in some cases violence, racism and other types of discrimination. If European and national authorities have been acting to detect and sanction such behaviours in professional sport for more than two decades, the same cannot be said of amateur sport. Its hyper-local and fragmented nature makes it difficult to implement nationwide or European-wide detection and prevention measures.
Efus designed the EU-funded MATCH-SPORT project as a practical tool to support tolerance and non-discrimination in amateur sport via local authorities, the level of governance best suited for this purpose, since it is the level that is closest to citizens.