This conceptual paper explores whether the normative legitimacy of International Sports Associations such as Fédération Internationale de Football Association and Fédération Internati...

ABSTRACTInternational sporting associations like the International Federation of Football Associations, the International Olympic Committee and Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile have throughout the twentieth century promoted political neutrality as a source of autonomy. With FIFA and the IOC’s official adherence to the United Nations’ human rights conventions in 2017, FIA remains one of the few large ISAs where neutrality is not underpinned by a corrective on human rights. However, this position is in conflict with the ethical obligations (...) FIA contracted when it was given full recognition by the IOC in 2013. To discuss this problematic, this paper draws upon J.S. Mill’s On Liberty and the concept of ‘inaction’ as a source for ways in which the FIA might reconsider its current stance.Abbreviations: IOC ; FIA ; FIFA ; ICRC (International Committee of... (shrink)

This paper examines gender diversity in sport governance globally. Theoretically, the study draws on gender dynamics in organisations, in particular on Kanter’s concepts of gender ratios and critical mass. An audit of the gender ratio on boards of National Sport Organisations was conducted in 45 countries. Data were collected through the Sydney Scoreboard, an interactive website that tracks women’s presence on sport boards internationally. Findings show that women remain under-represented on three key indicators: as board directors, board chairs and chief (...) executives. Few countries have achieved a critical mass of 30 % representation and no continent has achieved the critical mass on any of the three indicators. Women’s under-representation in sport governance is due to complex gender dynamics. Gender diversity on sport boards is associated with four interwoven dimensions of gender relations: production, power, emotion and symbolism. The combination of the four dimensions produces an environment that may or may not be conducive to gender diversity. (shrink)

The book Philosophy of Sport: International Perspectives represents the work of some of the leading moral and philosophical academics in the popular practice of sport. All contributors are scholars and researchers in the area of the Philosophy of Sport, a growing area of serious study within universities and colleges across the world. The contributors are also active members of the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport a worldwide organisation dedicated to the development of the philosophy of sport (...) as a serious and influential area of academic study. The book adds to the growing literature, which focuses on rigorously examining the global significance that sport plays in the fabric of twenty-first century life. Articles within the book provide a diverse set of ideas related to sport from more familiar issue related to the ethics of performance enhancing substances and fair play, to issue of nationalism, and the way sport can contribute to human well-being. (shrink)

Official documents, such as the Word Anti-Doping Code (WADC), argue that sport can be deemed a homogenous and unitary concept. Even where different sports have varying characteristics, the homogenous view of a given sport (‘a sport’ or ‘the sport’) persists. The WADC, international and national sport associations aim to protect the spirit of (the) sport. In this picture, the intersection of sporting integrity and legal processes occupies a vital place. The article will posit that, from a legal (...) perspective sport is heterogeneous due to its governance, regulation, adjudication, and enforcement structures. International and national associations, such as sport federations and leagues, have separate normative orders. These normative orders lead to differences in ensuring sporting integrity. A plural normative environment is inherent in sport; thus, we need to deal with it. The article will conclude that although harmonising norms and interpretations related to sporting integrity through national and global institutions may be acceptable, these must be achieved by promoting good governance and human rights. (shrink)

The Global Association of International Sports Federations granted pole sports Observer Status, and with that, the International Pole Sports Federation took another step towards makin...

The Global Association of International Sports Federations granted pole sports Observer Status, and with that, the International Pole Sports Federation took another step towards makin...

Learning to live together is the central concern of education everywhere in the world. Traditional sporting games provide interpersonal experiences that shape miniature communities charged with emotional meanings. The objective of this study was to analyze the ethnomotor features of TSG in three Catalan-speaking Autonomous Communities and to interpret them for constructing emotional communities. The study followed a phenomenological-interpretative paradigm. The identification of TSG was done by a hermeneutic methodological approach by using an exhaustive exploratory documentary research. We studied 503 (...) games collected in the Dictionary Català-Valencià-Balear de Alcover and Moll. Instruments and procedure: A database was built up with information about the internal and external logic of the games. The validity of the information was confirmed by means of a concordance test between the researchers. Data processing was carried out by means of classification trees, identifying the predictive variables of the types of TSG. Most of the TSGs were sociomotor games. The classification tree identified four explanatory variables. Three variables were internal traits, and one variable corresponded to external logic. Features of the TSG of the Catalan-speaking Autonomous Communities build original emotional communities. The ethnomotor regularities triggered emotional experiences associated with pleasure for living together ; domesticating of aggressiveness over opponents ; developing sustainability ; educating the competition ; and interpersonal well-being based on the community. (shrink)

Should the use of performance-enhancing drugs be banned in sport? A proper response to this question depends upon ideas of the meaning and value of sport. To a certain extent, sport is associated with ideal values such as equality of opportunity, fair play, performance and progress. PED use is considered contrary to these values. On the other hand, critics see sport as an expression of non-sustainable and competitive individualism that threatens human welfare and development. PED use is considered a logical (...) consequence of these values. I challenge both views as simplistic and inadequate. I develop what I refer to as the normative structure of sport consisting of self-imposed constraints at three levels: in the formal rules, in norms for fair play, and in the interpretation of athletic excellence as a morally relevant instantiation of human excellence. I argue that the question of a ban on PED should be discussed at the third level and depends upon interpretations of athletic excellence as a form of human excellence. I conclude that, in the current situation of elite sport, proponents of a ban on PED seem to have the strongest arguments. (shrink)

With recent controversies surrounding the eligibility of athletes with disorders of sex development and hyperandrogenism, as well as continued discussion of the conditions transgender athletes must meet to compete in high-performance sport, a wide array of scholars representing a diverse range of disciplines have weighed in on both the appropriateness of classifying athletes into the female and male categories and the best practices of doing so. In response to cases of high-profile athletes’ sex being called into question, the International (...) Olympic Committee, the International Association of Athletics Federations, and the National Collegiate Athletics Association, among others, published or updated policies addressing who is eligible to compete in the women’s sport category and under what conditions. This paper addresses the areas in which philosophical reasoning and ethical analysis can contribute to reopened debates about the surveillance of the women’s category in sport. Emphasis is placed on determining where the onus of responsibility should fall for ensuring the new policies are followed. (shrink)

Caster Semenya, a South African 18-year-old, won the 800-metre track running title at the Berlin World Athletics Championships in 2009. Only 3 h later, her gender was being harshly contested. The investigation of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) was neither discreet nor respectful of her privacy. Caster's case has implications for the ethics of sports and debates about gender and enhancement, and for the philosophical debate about the nature of categories and the classification of people. The (...) IAAF has not disclosed the results of their tests on Caster, and the South African Ministry of Sport has decreed that in any case she can continue running with women in her own country. But could a scientific or medical test offer uncontroversial answers regarding Caster's gender? The concept of ‘gender’ is partly a social construction. The authors argue that ethics may guide science and medicine at addressing such questions. (shrink)

Sportfilosofie en haar centrale vragen Sportfilosofie heeft haar academische wortels in de jaren zeventig van de vorige eeuw, met de oprichting van de International Association for the Philosophy of Sport en het Journal of the Philosophy of Sport . In Nederland heeft sportfilosofie een academische plek verworven aan het begin van de jaren negentig aan de Faculteit der Bewegingswetenschappen.

In April 2018, the International Association of Athletics Federations released new regulations placing a ceiling on women athletes’ natural testosterone levels to “ensure fair and meaningful competition.” The regulations revise previous ones with the same intent. They require women with higher natural levels of testosterone and androgen sensitivity who compete in a set of “restricted” events to lower their testosterone levels to below a designated threshold. If they do not lower their testosterone, women may compete in the male category, (...) in an intersex category, at the national level, or in unrestricted events. Women may also challenge the regulation, whether or not they have lowered their testosterone, or quit sport. Irrespective of IAAF’s stated aims, the options forced by the new regulations are impossible choices. They violate dignity, threaten privacy, and mete out both suspicion and judgement on the sex and gender identity of the athletes regulated. (shrink)

According to the Differences of Sex Development Regulations of the International Association of Athletics Federations, Caster Semenya and other athletes with heightened testosterone levels are considered non-eligible for middle distance running races in the women’s class. Based on an analysis of fair equality of opportunity in sport, I take a critical look at the Semenya case and at IAAF’s DSD Regulations. I distinguish between what I call stable and dynamic inequalities between athletes. Stable inequalities are those that athletes cannot (...) impact or control in any significant way such as inequalities in biological sex, body size and chronological age. Dynamic inequalities, such as inequalities in strength, speed and endurance, or in technical and tactical skills, can be impacted and to a certain extent controlled by athletes. If stable inequalities exert significant and systematic impact on performance, they provide a rationale for classification. If high testosterone level is an inborn, strong and systemic driver of performance development, inequalities in such levels can provide a rationale for classification. As is emphasised by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, this leads to a dilemma of rights: the right of Semenya to compete in sport according to her legal sex and gender identity, and the right of other athletes within the average female testosterone range to compete under fair conditions. I conclude with providing conditional support of the CAS decision in the Semenya case and of IAAF’s DSD Regulations. (shrink)

Caster Semenya is done with track and field. At 29, her hopes for a continued career as a professional middle-distance runner are dashed. After her case against International Association for Athletics Federation 1 was dismissed by the Court for Arbitration of Sport on 1 May 2019, she has switched to football later in the year.1 Semenya’s case may have come to its legal conclusion, however it has generated an aporia regarding the binary classification in athletics, which has yet to (...) be solved.2 It is time the implications of the fair equality of opportunity principle as a normative basis for the construction of categories in sport are taken seriously to move forward the debate on unfair advantages in sport. Loland conditionally justifies restricting the women’s category to athletes with testosterone levels below a certain threshold, on the basis of the FEO principle, and of a distinction between stable and dynamic inequalities between athletes. …. (shrink)

The paper discusses the current medical practice of "gender verification" in sports from an ethical point of view. It takes the recent public discussion about 800-meter runner Caster Semenya as a starting point. At the World Championships in Athletics 2009 in Berlin, Germany, Semenya was challenged by competitors as being a so called "sex impostor". A medical examination to verify her sex ensued. The author analyses whether athletes like Semenya could claim a right not to know that is generally (...) acknowledged in human genetics and enforced by international and national genetic privacy laws. The relevance of this right for genetic diagnosis in sports is discussed. To this end, the interests of the athlete concerned and of third parties are balanced according to the expected benefits and harms. Harm is documented in a number of cases and includes unjustified disqualification, severe sex and gender identity crisis, demeaning reactions, social isolation, depression and suicide. Benefits are dubious as most cases of intersex are considered irrelevant for sports competition. It has to be concluded that the benefits to be gained from "gender verification" in sports via genetic testing do not outweigh the grave individual disadvantages. The current practice of athletic associations to largely ignore the right of competitors not to know does not comply with prevailing ethical provisions on the protection of sensitive personal data. Therefore, genetic "gender verification" in sports should be abolished. (shrink)

The present research aimed to provide a more holistic analysis of stressful experiences in sport by examining how stress appraisal, coping and emotion are dynamically inter-related constructs and the extent to which their dynamic relationship is associated with objective performance. Based on process-oriented methods, two studies were conducted with elite athletes in order to investigate the dynamic relationship between these constructs and performance in highly demanding sport situations (Study 1: simulated competitive fencing matches during a training session; Study 2: real-life (...) competitive fencing matches during an international competition). The results of the random coefficient regression models emphasise the dynamic nature of the relationship between stress appraisal, coping behaviour, emotion and objective performance over the course of fencing matches. They allowed identification of additional mediating effects of coping and emotion within dynamic relationships between stress appraisal and performance. These studies contribute to a deeper understanding of psychological adaptation in performance environments. The implications of the findings are discussed in relation to the design of effective coping interventions to support the learning of performance-related coping skills and the attainment of performance goals among individuals in highly demanding environments. (shrink)

Disclosing the ontology of sports injuries by looking closer at their meaning provides us with insight into the professional ethics of the sports medicine specialist. The aim of this article is twofold: to disclose the “the ontology of sports injuries,” and to use the disclosure as an insightful perspective for dwelling on the ethics of sports medicine. Because of the unique nature of sports, the standard ethical prescriptions usually associated with medical ethics are of little (...) use for the sports medicine specialist in treating sport injuries. In spelling out the special ethical context of sports medicine, this paper suggests several distinctions. I propose several models, which provide different conceptions of what constitutes a sport injury: (1) The Medical Model; (2) The Normative Model; (3) The Liberal Model; (4) The Phenomenological Model. The implications of each of these models for sports medicine is assessed, and through them the concept of a sports injury is clarified in a way that can assist us in inferring what is to be done from an ethical point of view. (shrink)

It is widely recognized that motivation is an important determinant for a successful sports career. Specific patterns of motivational constructs have recently demonstrated promising associations with future success in team sports like football and ice hockey. The present study scrutinizes whether those patterns also exist in individual sports and whether they are able to predict future performance levels. A sample of 155 young individual athletes completed questionnaires assessing achievement goal orientations, achievement motives, and self-determination at t1. (...) The person-oriented method linking of clusters after removal of a residue was used to form clusters based on these motivational constructs in order to analyze the relations between these clusters and the performance level 2.5 years later. Similar to the studies in team sports, four motivational patterns were observed at t1. The highly intrinsically achievement-oriented athletes were much more likely to compete internationally [odds ratio = 2.12], compared to the failure-fearing athletes. Although team and individual sports differ in many respects, they nevertheless are characterized by similar and thus generalizable career-promoting motivational profiles: Regardless of the type of sport, the highly intrinsically achievement-oriented athletes consistently have the best potential for success. (shrink)

Despite the reality of intersex individuals whose biological markers do not necessarily all point towards a traditional binary understanding of either male or female, the vast majority of sports divide competition into categories based on a binary notion of biological sex and develop policies and regulations to police the divide. In so doing, sports governing bodies (SGBs) adopt an imperfect model of biological sex in order to serve their particular purposes, which, typically, will include protecting the fundamental sporting (...) value of fair competition. Yet, one potential consequence of enforcing such an approach would seem to be the exclusion or marginalization of individuals whose biological development does not fit within the binary model, whether due to genetics or through a choice to undergo medical intervention to better represent a chosen gender identity. Any such exclusion or marginalization will inevitably tend to undermine another fundamental value of sport, that of inclusivity. In the context of those with differences of sex development, SGBs appear to be faced with a difficult problem: dealing with a conflict between two fundamental values of sport. Different approaches to this problem have been suggested, with some academics proposing that sports organisations, in general, ought to prioritise fairness above, while others suggest the need to ‘balance’ competing values or even to prioritise inclusion over fairness. However, it is argued that any of these approaches are, in principle, justifiable as any sport should be free to prioritise or balance its own values. What seems more important for any SGB is the need for a rational and transparent justification of regulations that pursue fair competition at the expense of inclusivity. Furthermore, where fair competition and inclusivity are fundamental values, any such justification would seem to demand adherence to some basic norms. First, the regulations should be built on (and articulate) a consistent and principled basis of what ‘fair competition’ means in a particular sport. Second, any regulations should only exclude or restrict participation to the minimum degree necessary to achieve the sense of fair competition so articulated. Third, SGBs should be transparent about what their values are and where their priorities lie so that participants and other stakeholders are able to make an informed choice as to whether they wish to participate in, support, or be associated with a particular sport. With reference to the adoption of the Eligibility Regulations for Athletes with Differences of Sex Development (the ‘DSD Regulations’) by the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF), this article seeks to evaluate whether the approach of the IAAF satisfied these basic requirements. (shrink)

This paper examines footraces that are paced and unpaced, and runners who are pre-arranged, designated pacers and those who are not. Although pacesetting is commonplace in footraces today, the practice challenges our conception of sport competition, the nature of competitors and the meaning of records. For example, Bale calls paced races as ‘staged experiments’ to set world records and argues that pacers were crucial in the running career of Roger Bannister. In 2011, the International Association of Athletics Federation banned (...) women’s world records in mixed gender running events, like major marathons, because women were paced by male runners. By examining these cases and others, the authors here will claim paced footraces are qualitatively different than unpaced competitions, pacers introduce peculiar motives and intentions as competitors, women should not be denied opportunities to excel and perform at their very best, and the 2011 IAAF policy is unjustified. (shrink)

Background: Job satisfaction is largely associated with organizational aspects, including improved working environments, worker’s well-being and more effective performance. There are many definitions regarding job satisfaction in the existing scholarly literature: it can be expressed as a positive emotional state, a positive impact of job-related experiences on individuals, and employees’ perceptions regarding their jobs. Aims: No reliable scales in Arabic language to assess job satisfaction in the sports and physical education field exist.This study aimed to trans-culturally adapt and validate (...) the Pepe’s “Teacher Job Satisfaction Scale” 9 items (TJSS-9), creating the “Teacher of Physical Education Job Satisfaction Inventory” (TPEJSI) in Arabic language. This scale was administered to a Tunisian population of sports and physical education teachers and analyzed according to the Pepe’s theoretical model.. More in detail, this investigation systematically tested its factor structure, in terms of internal consistency/reliability, predictive validity, sensitivity and convergent validity. Methods: A total of 417 Tunisian teachers of sports and physical education participated voluntarily in this study. The sample comprised of 258 males and of 159 females. More in detail, 189 were teachers teaching in primary schools of physical education, 105 teaching in secondary schools, and 123 were university teachers. Both exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analyses were performed on random-split halves of the sample. Results: The three-dimensional alpha coefficients of the TPEJSI were all greater than 0.80: for satisfaction with colleagues, alpha was 0.865; for satisfaction with parents, alpha was 0.856 and for satisfaction with students alpha was 0.860. The CFA fit indices were satisfactory. Conclusions: Given the good EFA factor loadings, the CFA fit indices, the correlation matrix, the sensitivity analysis, the convergent validity and the excellent internal consistency, it can be concluded that the TPEJSI is a good psychometric tool that can be used to quantitatively assess the job satisfaction level among teachers of sports and physical education in the Arabic-speaking world. (shrink)

Adults (more than 18 years old) are likely to reproduce the habits that they acquired during childhood and adolescence (from 6 to 16 years old). For that reason, teachers and parents have the responsibility to promote an active and healthy lifestyle in children and adolescents. Even though every school subject should promote healthy activities, Physical Education (PE) is the most important subject to foster well-being habits associated to healthy lifestyle during sport practice and other kinds of active tasks. Indeed, there (...) are many factors that influence the acquisition of healthy habits that should be taken into account when programs and activities are implemented in both educational and extracurricular context. In this sense, psychological and social factors are of utmost importance to achieve optimal experiences for an active and healthy lifestyle. However, due to the myriad of studies analyzing different factors in different contexts, there could be confusion when programs and pedagogical strategies are applied in educational or extracurricular contexts. The objective of this investigation is to analyze the state of art of the psychosocial factors which influence the engagement in physical activities and sport practice. The keywords used in this review were mainly: ‘Self-Determination Theory’, ‘motivation’, ‘Psychological need satisfaction, ‘physical activity and sport engagement’, ‘Elementary Education’, ‘Secondary Education’, ‘Physical Education’. The articles were selected according to the following criteria: (a) peer-reviewed original research published in international journals indexed in JCR or SJR, (b) published in English or Spanish, (c) about psychosocial factors which influence the physical activity and sport engagement, (b) in educational or extracurricular context. Research articles selected were found through nine databases. It was observed that physical activities and sport practice engagement are closely related to psychological factors. In particularly, intrinsic motivation was able to determine the active participation in any activity, including physical activity and sport practice during the implementation of Small-Sided Games and other kinds of pedagogical strategies (e.g., Pedagogical Models). Motivation was also closely related to flow state. Finally, these variables should be considered in order to organize effective programs to promote an active and healthy lifestyle in Physical Education classes. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate the interrelationships between push and pull factors associated with the consumption of women’s professional basketball games. Multiple factors pertaining to sport consumers’ internal needs, identified as “push” factors, contain various intangible socio-psychological motivations representing an individual’s intrinsic desires that drive consumers toward certain goal-driven behaviors. On the other hand, “pull” factors, related to the supply side, refer to the different aspects of sport products the management of sport teams provides. It is (...) imperative to obtain a better understanding of the push–pull interaction so that sport marketers can design their products to satisfy spectators’ expectations with different needs. Spectators attending WNBA games responded to an on-site survey. CFA was conducted to ensure the psychometric properties of the scales, which showed that the overall model fit the data well. A canonical correlation analysis was performed, and two significant functions were revealed by the dimension reduction analysis. The first function [F = 4.49, p < 0.001]: I-Want-Everything-Consumer suggests that the market segment comprises individuals with multiple needs and expectations, both of which need to be met simultaneously. Thus, sports marketers can satisfy WNBA consumers’ needs by enhancing the quality of tangible pull factors. The second function [F = 2.38, p < 0.001]: Achievement-Seekers revealed that the consumers motivated by vicarious achievement expect game promotion rather than the quality of the opposing team, indicating that sport marketers should provide tailored promotional strategies to satisfy this segment of consumers. Specifically, the findings of this study can be used to segment consumers based upon fan motives and position products accordingly by managing the controllable aspects of sport products. This study provides empirical evidence of the relationship between WNBA consumers’ multiple needs and attributes associated with the WNBA core product. (shrink)

This article offers an account of organizational change to explain why women leaders are underrepresented compared to women athletes in many sports organizations. I distinguish between accommodation and transformation as forms of change: the former includes women without challenging binary constructions of gender, the latter transforms an organization’s gendered logic. Through a case study of the International Olympic Committee from 1967-1995, I trace how the organization came to define gender equity primarily in terms of accommodating women’s segregated athletic (...) participation. Key to this was the construction of women’s bodies as athletically able but inferior to men, an arrangement formalized in codified rules and procedures and legitimized by external stakeholders. Defined in these terms, gender equity did little to transform the organization’s binary and hierarchically gendered logic, which continued to shape the informal norms and procedures associated with the organization’s allegedly gender-neutral and meritocratic yet male-dominated leadership. I argue that the exclusion of women from ostensibly gender-integrated leadership positions allows organizations to avoid revealing gender similarity between men and women. This maintains a logic underpinned by notions of binary gender difference and masculine superiority. (shrink)

The focus of this article will be sport predicated on contests between nation-states, or what we will call inter-national sport, at the elite level. While much literature on the politics of sport has focused on the proper role of the nation-state in regards to specific sport issues, few have questioned whether elite sport ought to involve nationalism as part of its competition. Most who have defended such sport argue that the benefits of nationalism and the national identity outweigh any potential (...) unintended harm. In this article, we question these conclusions by arguing that both lusory and ethical considerations undermine elite sport’s emphasis on inter-national contests. We will be trying to argue that these artifacts no longer should play a primary role in determining eligibility or serving as the basis for determining competitive sides. We will make this argument by focusing on the ethical dilemmas posed specifically by inter-national competition including international discord and reduced quality of competition. We also argue that promoting national differences does not serve a useful lusory role in elite sport. However, we will concede that Morgan’s respect for the narratives associated with sport indicate that national identity may continue playing a limited role in elite sporting contests. So while we make an exception for a soft national cultural narrative, we conclude that such arguments taken together indicate that national identities ought to have a much diminished role, if any at all, in elite sport. (shrink)

The paper defines the practice of tanking in regard to sport organizations and differentiates this approach from activities such as match fixing and team building. Thereafter, the ethical implications tanking presents are developed using Alasdair MacIntyre’s neo-Aristotilean ethical framework. In particular, MacIntyre’s concept of a practice that supports both internal and external goods is discussed to examine the moral questions tanking presents. The insights developed within this analysis are applied throughout to the specific practice of basketball within the discrete institution (...) of the National Basketball Association. Finally, the paper discusses some broader implications the tanking strategy presents for the management and leadership of a sophisticated sport franchise. (shrink)

I appreciate all of the commentaries as they raise a series of critical and constructive points. Due to limited space, I can only address some of the issues in brief ways. Knox and Anderson indicate that classification according to testosterone levels should be applied only at the elite level and with a more inclusive approach in amateur and recreational sport. Indeed, I agree, and this is also the case in the International Association of Athletics Federation's Differences of Sexual Development (...) regulations that hold only for international events. A second comment questions whether my use of the adjective ‘systemic’ adds meaning beyond what is already included in ‘stable inequality’. I find ‘systemic’ useful as it emphasises inequalities with effects more or less on the whole organism, but I am definitely open for improving the terminology. A third comment relates to whether inequalities must be inborn to justify classification. This is a valid point, and I need to be more precise. Inequalities need not be inborn. For instance, as Knox and Anderson note, stable testosterone levels can be outcomes of hormone therapy as in the case of elite transwomen athletes. Chambers challenges my view that sport is structured on a luck egalitarian principle. She points to significant impact of inequalities in …. (shrink)

We determined the prevalence of eating disorder symptoms among elite Spanish athletes from a broad range of sports and levels of competition and examined the associations between the presence of symptoms and perceived sport-specific weight pressures. We surveyed 646 elite athletes representing 33 sports from top-division teams and two elite athlete training centers in Catalonia. Based on the results of the Eating Attitudes Test-26 responses, 5.1% of athletes were at risk of EDs. The highest rates of ED (...) symptoms were observed in male endurance athletes and female esthetic athletes. Competition level was not a risk factor. The only gender differences in the presence of ED symptoms by competing level were observed in athletes competing at the national level. Female athletes with ED symptoms scored higher on the two subscales of the Spanish version of the Weight Pressures in Sport tool: coach and sport-specific pressures and pressures from teammates and due to uniform. Male athletes with ED symptoms scored higher on the pressures due to uniform subscale. Finally, symptomatic female but not male athletes competing at international and national levels also perceived greater sport-specific weight pressures. (shrink)

How do activist groups instigate institutional change within an organizational field? Studying the global sports and apparel industry, we explore how activist groups applied different tactics over time, including conflict and collaboration, and how the accumulation of these tactics led to the build-up of pressure on firms within the industry to change their policies and activities on labor issues in their supply chains. Building on interorganizational conflict literature, we show how an industry-level approach is helpful to understand the sequential (...) patterning of tactical choices in evoking institutional change. These findings contribute to the growing literature of activists’ influence strategies. (shrink)

Previous research on Physical Activity has been highly valuable in elucidating how PA affects the structure and function of the hippocampus in elderly populations that take part in structured interventions. However, how PA affects the hippocampus in younger populations that perform PA during daily-life activities remains poorly understood. In addition, this research has not examined the impact of PA on the internal structure of the hippocampus. Here, we performed a cross-sectional exploration of the way structural and functional aspects of the (...) hippocampus are associated with habitual PA performed during work, leisure time, and sports in the daily lives of healthy young adults. We assessed PA in these three different contexts through a validated questionnaire. The results show that PA performed during work time correlated with higher subicular volumes. In addition, we found that PA changed functional connectivity between a location in the middle/posterior hippocampus and regions of the default mode network, and between a location in the anterior hippocampus and regions of the somatomotor network. No statistical effects of PA performed during leisure time and sports were found. The results generalize the impact of PA on younger populations and show how PA performed in daily-life situations correlates with the precise internal structure and functional connectivity of the hippocampus. (shrink)

In October 2017, after an 11-year-old battle, the Global Association of International Sports Federation classified pole dancing as a professional sport. In this essay, I argue that pole dan...

Many professional football clubs in Europe have youth academies. The business model of such academies is that a club invests resources in training a player and then, when the player is old enough to sign an adult contract, either sells the player or offers him an adult contract. According to Fédération Internationale De Football Association (FIFA), international transfers of players are only permitted if the player is over the age of 18. There are five exceptions to this rule. One (...) of them is that if the player is between 16 and 18 and the transfer takes place within the territory of the European Economic Area (EEA), then an international transfer is allowed. This article is a discussion of the FIFA rules that mandate non-uniform age limits for when players can first transfer to clubs within the EEA area. The conclusion of the article is that FIFA is morally unjustified in setting a higher minimum age for transfer to EEA clubs for non-EEA players than for EEA players. The article first develops an argument for its conclusion. It then discusses, and rejects, the five best objections to this argument. (shrink)

Internationally, governments, health and exercise practitioners are struggling with the threat posed by physical inactivity leading to worsening outcomes in health and life expectancy and the associated high economic costs. To meet this challenge it is important to enhance the quality, and quantity, of participation in sports and physical activity throughout the life course to sustain healthy and active lifestyles. This paper supports the need to develop a physically literate population, who meaningfully engage in play and physical activity through (...) the development of functional movement skills in enriched environments. This is a shift away from reductionist approaches to physical activity engagement and maintenance to an ecological dynamics approach that focuses on enrichment to support functional movement skill learning and development. This is an embedded approach to physical literacy that allows learners the space and time to “explore–discover” within environments that will lead to a concomitant self-organization of highly intricate network of co-dependent sub-systems resulting in functional movement solutions for the performance task and enduring positive adaptations to subsystems supporting the physical literacy journey across the life course. “Explore-discover adapt” is at the heart of two contemporary learner-centered pedagogies: Non-linear Pedagogy and the Athletic Skills Model. Both emphasize the importance of enrichment experiences from an early age, and throughout life course, and both appreciate the inherent complexity involved in the learning process and the importance of designing a rich and varied range of athletic, participatory experiences that will support the embedded development of physical literacy leading to ongoing physical activity for all. The final part of this paper will demonstrate the potential of an ecological dynamics approach for supporting the concept of physical literacy by providing a roadmap for a reliable and valid measurement of physical literacy when considered from both an ecological dynamics perspective and the phenomenology understanding of physical literacy. (shrink)

The relevance of the study lies in the fact that in modern conditions globalization acts as the main trend in the development of the modern world; this is noted at the Davos forum in 2019. Development of all spheres of society, the state and the person - from politics, economics - to sports and gender equality. The problem of the research - globalization in sport - is transformation of sport into a global phenomenon, universal in nature, which has significant (...) impact on all aspects of society. Therefore, the scope of dispute and sports culture act as an object of scientific research. Sport stimulates and forms social and cultural reflection on a world scale, reviving the idea of interdependence of humankind in sport and through sport. Unity is formed due to a variety of factors, including a network of communication technologies of financial, political and cultural interdependencies, new cultural forms of interaction that give impetus to sports interactions, forming a single global market for goods, services, behavioral standards, models of sociality, formation of modern values achieving sports success. Problem of globalization in sports is associated with Eurocentric’s, based on formation of European values of sports, sports culture and sports success, and in general sports management. The object of the research is sports management as a condition for the development of sports culture in the context of globalization 4.0. The objectives of the research are to analyze new trends in the global mankind development that influence sports development and culture, contribute to self-fulfillment of a person from the physical and spiritual side as a priority of creative person. Methods - analysis and synthesis, abstraction, cross-cultural analysis, logical and historical, comparative analysis contribute the penetration into complex phenomena and processes of modern reality associated with sports in context of globalization. Results. Globalization is changing usual way people in sports, along with many advantages, has number of negative, painful problems associated with overt commercialization. Globalization has entered single microsystem structure as a process of integration and economic exchange; global artifacts are present in sports management, to extent that sport is institutionalized on the scale of global sports communities. The form of sports globalization refers to specific way that structuring problems of sports take place and their transfer to the globalization level of problem solving, that is, global and local integration takes place. Conclusion. Globalization means increase in available methods of organizing sport events, which requires formation of sports concept management - transnational, international, interregional, macro-rational, regional municipal, local organizations require improvement of sports management. This ladder of administrative levels is cut through the functional networks of corporations, international organizations and non-governmental organizations, as well as number of professional international organizations. Internationalization of sports is being determined by globalization. (shrink)

The International Panel on Social Progress is an independent association of top research scholars with the goal of assessing methods for improving the main institutions of modern societies. The IPSP has produced a report consisting of twenty-two chapters in three volumes that distills the research of these scholars and outlines what the best social science has to say about positive social change. Written in accessible language by scholars across the social sciences and humanities, these volumes assess the achievements of (...) world societies in past centuries, the current trends, the dangers that we are now facing, and the possible futures in the twenty-first century. It covers the main socio-economic, political, and cultural dimensions of social progress, global as well as regional issues, and the diversity of challenges and their interplay around the world. The authors offer a cautious optimistic conclusion: multiple ideas for social progress and better policies are already available and deserve to be tested and implemented. (shrink)

The Joint International Conference on Logic Programming, sponsored by the Association for Logic Programming, is a major forum for presentations of research, applications, and implementations in this important area of computer science. Logic programming is one of the most promising steps toward declarative programming and forms the theoretical basis of the programming language Prolog and its various extensions. Logic programming is also fundamental to work in artificial intelligence, where it has been used for nonmonotonic and commonsense reasoning, expert systems (...) implementation, deductive databases, and applications such as computer-aided manufacturing. Krzysztof R. Apt is project leader at the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam and part-time Professor in Computer Science at the University of Amsterdam. Topics covered: Theory Foundations. Programming Languages. Implementation. Programming Methodologies and Tools. Applications. Deductive Databases. Artificial Intelligence. Parallelism. (shrink)

Exploring online criticisms of the ‘take the knee’ protest during ‘Euro 2020’, this article examines how alt- and far-right conspiracies were both constructed and communicated via the social media platform, Twitter. By providing a novel exploration of alt-right conspiracies during an international football tournament, a qualitative thematic analysis of 1,388 original tweets relating to Euro 2020 was undertaken. The findings reveal how, in criticisms levelled at both ‘wokeism’ and the Black Lives Matter movement, antiwhite criticisms of the ‘take the (...) knee’ protest were embroiled in alt-right conspiracies that exposed an assumed Cultural Marxist, ‘woke agenda’ in the tournament’s organization and mainstream media coverage. In conclusion, it is argued that conspiratorial discourses, associated with the alt-right, provided a framework through which the protest could be understood. This emphasises how the significance of conspiracy functions to promote the wider dissemination of alt-right ideology across popular cultural contexts, such as sport. (shrink)

This paper first considers and rebuts George Orwell's case against international sport. He argues both from general principles and specific examples that international sporting contests lead to org...

After two years of discussions and revisions, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) published the 2021 World Anti-Doping Code on June 16, 2020. Among the most significant additions to this iteration of the Code was the inclusion of new categories of athletes subject to differential treatment by WADA, including the “protected person” category. In this paper, we examine the recent case of figure skater Kamila Valeryevna Valieva, the first athlete given differential treatment due to her being categorized as a “protected person.” (...) We apply a relational justice framework to the case to provide a nuanced, descriptive analysis of the case generally, and the application of the “protected person” category in particular.We first describe details of the athlete, her performances and anti-doping rule violation, and the “protected person” category, to provide context. We then describe and analyze the relations between several institutional actors, principally WADA and the International Court for the Arbitration of Sport (CAS), the athlete and her team, and other figure skating athletes at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. To do so, we use two concepts of justice, conservative and ideal, and their component parts, entitlement, desert, and need.Our description and analyses demonstrate that (1) WADA’s notions of justice are essentially conservative, while CAS acted toward more ideal notions, creating a fundamental disagreement in what was owed and to whom. We show (2) that CAS’ decision may have nonetheless caused harm to the athlete, raising questions about the efficacy and capability of the “protected person” category. Finally, (3) our analyses show the influence that notions of justice necessarily have these actors shape each other, thus change the sporting institutions and activities themselves. (shrink)