Ninth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Sports and sport organisations can be sites that reflect and reproduce racial, gender, and social class inequalities and inequities. Institutions of higher learning are not excluded from these socially structured practices in relation to the organisation of sports. This paper explore gender equity practices in soccer at four Western Cape South African universities. The data was gathered using individual semi-structured interviews with four soccer administrators comprising of three males and one female, and two males and two females in each institution totaling 16 men and women soccer players. To analyse the data responses were coded using Descriptive coding and in Vivo coding in relation to the research questions, and emerging categories were captured and lastly the themes. This represented a key part of the iterative process of qualitative research. The discourse of equal and same opportunity and treatment emerged strongly for both males and females, and represent liberal feminist and neo-liberal ideology. There are gender inequity practices in soccer at universities due to the continuing male dominance and women are perceived as addition in soccer. Women’s soccer teams experience challenges to be seriously recognised and accepted by the structures of soccer in the university, because opportunities are not the same.