Football as an Inclusion Factor in Germany: “The UNCRPD as Mirrored by the Deutscher Fussball-Bund”.
Funding: Deutscher Fussball-Bund [DFB: German Football Association]
Research Institution: Technische Universität München | Sociology of Diversity
Project Management:
Sociology of Diversity Chair
Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Wacker
Uptown München-Campus D
Georg-Brauchle-Ring 60/62
80992 München
Tel.: +49 (89) 289 - 24460
Fax: +49 (89) 289 - 24463
Email: elisabeth.wacker@tum.de
Cooperation with: German Football Association (DFB)
Duration: 6 months (2014)
Final Report: December 2014
Project Staff: Stefan Schmidt, Dominik Baldin
Project Background:
Participation through sport is not really news. Indeed, with the adoption of the “European Sport for All Charter”, signatory states, Germany included, already committed to ensuring conditions that would enable the entire population to do sport (cf. Küchenmeister & Schneider 2011, p. 7). This “Right to Sport for All” has been revitalised through the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 30 of the UNCRPD postulates the equal participation of persons with disabilities in the areas of culture as well as recreation, leisure and, explicitly, sport. The participation “to the fullest extent possible of persons with disabilities in mainstream sporting activities at all levels” is encouraged and promoted (§ 5.a.). Persons with disabilities should also have the “opportunity to organize, develop and participate in disability-specific sporting […] activities” (§ 5.b). Thus the pilot project strives to investigate how the DFB has complied with this duty in the context of organised sport and which projects with follow-up potential it has already conceived and/or supported.
Aims of the Project:
The UNCRPD’s requirement to ensure the access to leisure and sport, hence also football, for all is a complex task. An analytical grid developed in the course of the project should help to identify to what extent the DFB has already initiated inclusion-oriented projects and made efforts to comply with the stipulations of the UNCRPD. This should enable the survey and evaluation of existing activities, structures, processes or objectives as they relate to and influence the equal participation of persons with disabilities in football. Based on the criteria and indicators of the UNCRPD, a project grid will thus emerge that will present requirements and aims linked to opportunities and risks resulting from changes, expert and legal standards, potential strategic options and scientifically-based recommendations in a transparent and systematic way. Moreover, it should generate a framework that can be used for the regular reporting that will be required in the future, according to the UNCRPD.
Links:
The project announcement by the DFB [in German] can be found here.