Thirteenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Football club VV-ABIM (fictious name) intends to pay attention to creating a safer sports climate for LGBTQI+ players and wonders how to tackle this. The reason is that since the club has started with women’s football, five years ago, there are some openly lesbian or bisexual women among them. These women are generally satisfied with the club, but are regularly disturbed by the homophobic or sexist comments from some men. Moreover, the National Sports Agreement pays a lot of attention to promoting a more positive and inclusive sports culture and all clubs have to pay attention to the agreement. There is a general agreement within the club that LGBTQI+ people are welcome and should feel safe, but some the board members realize that it may not yet be safe enough within the club. This is evidenced by the complaints of some women and the fact that not they do not know a single man who is out of the closet within the club. At the same time, there is resistance among some board members to taking specific measures for the safety of LGBTI+ people. They consider themselves quite inclusive and open to everyone. It is also believed that homophobic comments are made within the club, but that they are absolutely not intended to insult gays. Additionally, board members appear to be somewhat overworked by all the measures taken by municipalities and ministries to achieve inclusiveness and there is a lack of volunteers to carry out all these measures.