This interdisciplinary research project investigates how violence among young people in amateur football arises and can be prevented and non-violent interaction stimulated. It will focus on the tension between the need to safeguard sport as a site where young people can freely express and assert themselves and the need to provide a safe and inclusive environment for all participants. Specifically, the project asks what the effects of person-environment transactions, the role of gender performances, notions of competition and the workings of peer pressure, social norms and legal rules are on the behaviour of young footballers. Using a mixed methods approach, the project will develop an integrated multi-level analysis of violent behaviour among young people in amateur football clubs. The first of its kind, this innovative project will produce novel interdisciplinary insights into violence in amateur football and the key mechanisms that cause or impede it. The project will also produce important new knowledge and evidence that can inform the government objective of fostering a safer sporting climate and enhance the capacity of the community sport sector to promote the development of prosocial behaviours, skills and identities in children and adolescents. The research has an excellent potential for future external funding.

• dr. Inge Claringbould
• dr. Jeroen Vermeulen

• prof.dr. Ramon Spaaij