Safe environments in sport: Young athletes, safeguarding, and children's rights

Serhat Yilmaz, Daniel J. A. Rhind and Susana Monserrat-Revillo

Chapter 5 in Research Handbook on Sport in Europe, 2026, pp 46-55 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Creating safe environments in sport, especially for children and young people, is an important necessity to safeguard the integrity of sport and to ensure functioning of its socio-cultural role in Europe. This has made creating safe environments one of the key priory areas for European Union (EU) sports policy. Both the policy and contemporary academic research view safe environments in sport as a construct that not only encompasses the safeguarding of participants from harm but also ensures their well-being through value-based approaches, especially through embedding children's rights into sport. Protection needs to be seen as a right, requiring for child-centred and rights-based sport environments that aim to realise the rights of children and young people as rights holders, whilst requiring duty bearers in sport to fulfil their rights responsibilities. This is an important shift from a reactive approach that historically focused on the prevention of harm, to a proactive approach that emphasises the creation of safe environments that foster the holistic human development of their participants in and through sport.

Keywords: Safeguarding; Interpersonal violence; Children's rights; Rights-based approach; Duty of care; Athlete welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035338382
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