This project is considered to represent good practice as it builds on existing work within a grass-roots sport context within Germany. Germany currently scores 55% in ILGA Europe’s Human Rights review, making it one of the top ten LGBT friendly countries in Europe. The project, however, attempts to drill down beyond policy to record and challenge the attitudes and beliefs of its members to homophobia and LGBT inclusion in sport.
Roter Stern Leipzig
Red Star Leipzig ‘99 eV (RSL) is a sports club based in Germany, and established in 1999. The club has over 500 members and several teams – men’s, women’s and youth. The men’s first team play in the Leipzig City League. The club has an explicitly anti discrimination and left-wing agenda, mixing sports participation with clear political goals around inclusion.
Project:
Context
Discrimination such as racism, sexism and homophobia are societal problems that also exist in the social context of sports. Roter Stern Leipzig (RSL) is committed to fighting these forms of discrimination. Until today RSL addressed the topic of discrimination, neonazism and violence in (main-stream) sports mainly via critiquing the negative example of other soccer clubs or federations. A possible consequence of this practice is that RSL members may conclude that they are not themselves subject to these kinds of problems and reflection on their own attitudes and discriminatory behaviour might diminish.
Following this observation, a working group within the sports club RSL would like to conduct quantitative and qualitative studies to find out more about the collective orientation, experiences of discrimination and the individual extent of prejudices as well as counter-strategies.
Aims
Our aims were to find out:
1. To what extent the club’s public anti-discriminatory statements are felt by the club’s membership
2. Which categories of differentiation do exist especially in left-wing-orientated projects and what role problematic attitudes towards other social groups play in this context
3. What the members feel about a project to tackle homophobia and what opportunities to challenge homophobia can be identified
Method
We wanted to achieve our aims by conducting research in order to form an evidence -based analysis of attitudes in our club alongside the dissemination of strategies to tackle homophobia.
Outcomes
We collected data regarding homophobic attitudes and behaviour within the sports club Red Star Leipzig ’99 e.V. in 2012. To collect the data, we used the methods of group discussions and questionnaires. The data was then assessed in an evaluation group (“AG Inhalt”) that was open for members as well as non-members of the sports club. Out of eight group discussions three were chosen and the data was then reduced to 30 pages. With the help of this basic data material two workshops were organised. Each workshop was hold by an external course instructor, Josefine Paul and Jan Tölva. Both workshops had been advertised on the internet (Facebook, web-page, e-mail) and with flyers. Each workshop was visited by 15 people. Most of them were members of Red Star Leipzig.
Tölva’s presentation started off with a theoretical input on homosexuality and heteronormativity in society. After that the workshop’s participants discussed the current state of behaviour and attitudes towards homosexuality within the sports club. The discussion was based on a selection of quotes from the data resources.
The second workshop, which took place on 8/2/2013, aimed at the development of concrete action strategies against homophobia that could then be implemented not only within the sports club itself but in any external social structure. For that reason federal state parliament member Josefine Paul from North Rhine-Westphalia, who is an expert on issues of sport and discrimination, had acquainted herself with the collected data and instructed the workshop. The discussion resulted in a list of concrete measures that can be put into practice in the sports club.
A final report was written that has been discussed and assessed within the evaluation group “AG Inhalt”. This final report presents the basis for a brochure, which has been printed with the Pride in Sport funding. The brochure is intended to be distributed for free among the almost 600 members of the sports club as well as among the Red Star Leipzig fan base (average number of spectators in 2011/2012: 400). Through the brochures we expect to be able to raise an increased awareness of the topic of homophobia within football and to promote the realisation of counter strategies against it.
Furthermore this project allows us to reach out to various external protagonists in sport, politics and media like other sports clubs, football associations and organisations. In order to achieve this, the creation of a help guide is planned that presents the results and action strategies to its readers. In addition we are planning an exhibition “Football and Homophobia” (“Fußball und Homophobie”) in 2013 which will another opportunity to present our findings to a vast number of people.
Related Files
Coming up…