Part 3 GLOBAL ISSUES: HARASSMENT AND ABUSE RESEARCH

3.6 Risks and opportunities for sexual exploitation in the Danish sports club
system
Jan Toftegaard Stoeckel
Background
Modern sport is often associated with values such as fairness, morality and
courage. Sport has also, historically, been one of the most important arenas for
teaching children and young people basic moral and social values. However, the
notion of sport as a morally pure institution stands in clear contrast to the growing
documentation of critical issues such as doping, corruption and coaches’ sexual
harassment and abuse of their athletes. The issues of doping and paedophilia have
raised questions about the ethical standards in sport and caused a moral panic
provoking Danish sports clubs to adopt hurriedly the ’10 recommendations for
preventing sexual abuse’ issued by the main sport organisations. Based on
assumptions rather than research, these recommendations have tended to put more
the focus of attention on individual perpetrator pathology than the complex nature of
interpersonal relations in sport. These are negotiated within the context of
organisational structures and cultures that allowing the grooming and exploitation of
athletes.
Whilst sport organisations have reacted to the problem of sexual harassment
and abuse by coaches by developing case handling procedures and brochures, fact
sheets and recommendations, the responsibility for developing adequate child
protection standards has been left entirely with local sports clubs. Until now, the
development of child protection strategies or action plans has not been a priority for
the national governing bodies in Denmark. Their main argument is that initiatives
should correspond to the size of the problem, which is currently perceived to be
small. Before the study reported below, no empirical work had been conducted to
support or challenge claims about child safety in voluntary youth sport clubs and very
little was known about the prevalence of sexual harassment and abuse in sport.
Since the mid-1980s researchers from various countries and scientific fields
have sought to investigate the scope and context of sexual exploitation in sport.
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