15:00 - 16:00 Taking action against the dark side of sports: creating resilience through athlete empowerment
Language: Dutch (English on request)
Location: Carre 2K
This session aims to demonstrate how the perceived power of the sports industry leaves athletes open to transgressive behaviour. Within sports, a culture has been created in which perceived power is considered a part of a person's identity and then misuse this power (e.g., a coach’s dominance over a submissive athlete). These perceived relationships of power, though not reflecting the true situation, are seen and accepted as the truth and those involved are acting according to this perception. As a result, the widespread acceptance of the misuse of power in sports promotes transgressive behaviours and this is in our view erodes the societal value of sports. In other words, the current culture in sports is putting the resilience of athletes at risk. Finally, we will discuss in this session why collective action by the sports community is necessary to strengthen the resilience of athletes and create safe sports for them.