Protecting child rights in football
Sport Management students are learning first-hand from those at the forefront of protecting the rights of children entering professional football across the globe.
Loughborough University have partnered with UNICEF on projects that examine whether professional football provides opportunities that are in the best interests of children globally.
Our research is influencing international stakeholders who work with football clubs, agents and parents to highlight the risks to children and promote more effective ways of protecting young people involved in the football industry.
Helping young people to make their voices heard
Football is a sport with global appeal, but the increasingly commercialised industry is reliant on young people becoming involved in the sport at an early age.
Media and policy reports have revealed that for some children getting involved in football can result in them being at risk of emotional and physical harm.
Our research shows commercial interest in football can both support, and contravene, children’s rights being realised as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
These rights include having their voices heard in decisions that affect them, the right to have an education and the right to be safe from violence.
Research influenced teaching
Students studying on the Sport Management BSc degree are now benefiting from the learnings gained during this research, in their first-year module ‘Critical Perspectives in Sport Management’.
The module, taught in part by Dr Mason, is designed to introduce students to some of the key issues and contemporary debates that are relevant to sports managers within the complex social, political, financial, and increasingly globalised environment within which they work, as well as to relevant theoretical concepts that aid the understanding of such issues and debates.
You can also hear more about Dr Mason’s research into the role that community sport plays in tackling serious youth violence, in our Experts in Sport Podcast
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