DISCLAIMER

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

Introduction

The following document named “Needs Assessment Report” corresponds to deliverable 2.1 of Work Package 2 of the SPORTBOARD project funded under the Erasmus + Sport programme of the European Commission. This initiative aims to improve good governance of grassroots sport organisations and governing bodies by proposing a holistic approach towards monitoring and managing ethics behaviour of child and young athletes. It combines theoretical knowledge and practical experience of five entities: Sant Cugat Creix (SCC), a non-for-profit association thatjoins grassroots sports organisations (Spain); the Sport club Anderlini (Anderlini), a grassroots sports organisation (Italy); the Municipality of Modena (Modena), a sports governing body (Italy), the Faculty of Psychology and Education and Sports Sciences of University of Ramon Llull University (URL), (Spain) and Think tank “Sport and citizenship” (S&C), (France).

The project is a follow-up initiative of successful implementation of Erasmus Plus Sport Collaborative Partnership “Ethics for Sport” (E4S) that was aimed at development of innovative mechanisms to promote Codes of Ethics in grassroots sports and ensure its effective enforcement. The project activities were focused on the development of Codes of Ethic and digital tools for registration of its implementation via an innovative App. After the project ended some project partners (SCC and Anderlini) came up with the idea to go further with the development of innovative mechanisms of monitoring and managing athletes’ ethics behaviour in sport for providing good governance in sport. In this regard, the SportBoard initiative will directly contribute to the Sport sector specific priority “Improving good governance in sport”.

In this regard, The SportBoard project intends to develop and test a holistic approach towards good governance for grassroots sport organisations and governing bodies based on monitoring, evaluation and management of athletes’ ethics behaviour. Good governance will be based on a systemic work of definition of ethics behaviour indicators, their registration, monitoring and management for providing efficient self-regulation of grass-roots sport organisations. SportBoard behaviour indicators will be organised around at least the 6 following categories of behaviour: (1) harassment & bullying; (2) discrimination, whether it be based on origin, colour, gender, religion, disability or sexual orientation; (3) doping; (4) abuse, including sexual abuse; (5) violence; and (6) match fixing.

As stated in the document corresponding to deliverable 2.2, the Desk Research is important in order to know the existing reality around the subject in order to be able to develop the project according to the real needs. Taking into consideration the work presented in deliverable D2.2, this document has three main objectives:

- Describing existing issues and barriers on monitoring and managing ethical behaviour of child and youth athletes within grassroots sport organisations

- Describing existing issues and barriers on collaboration of grassroots sport organisations and governing bodies for improving good governance by monitoring and managing athletes’ ethical behaviour.

- Describing existing issues and barriers on the role of families, coaches and athletes in relation to values in grassroots sport

The findings described in this report will drive the development of models and mechanisms of collaborations between grassroots sports organisations and governing bodies that will be tested further within the SportBoard Pilot Programme implementation.

To end the introduction, a brief explanation of the structure of this document seems necessary. To facilitate the reading of the report, the document has been structured around the objectives. The document begins with this brief introduction, followed by an explanation of the theoretical framework that gives meaning to the research and the methodology used. The document is then organised into three chapters according to the objectives of the report. Each chapter includes state of the art, methodology, results and conclusions. Finally, the document closes with some final conclusions, followed by recommendations for the implementation of the pilot test and the bibliographical references used.