Child protection in sport for sports coaches

Actuality Football is one of the most popular sports worldwide and millions of children around the world are involved in it. Many of them play, whether in organised matches or kick-abouts. At the same time, almost all children follow a favorite team, learning valuable life lessons such as loyalty and team work. In this context, involving children in playing football requires ensuring and respecting their right to a safe environment, a culture of respect and understanding within the football team. Every child has the right to enjoy football in a safe and inclusive environment, free from any form of abuse, harassment or exploitation, and the failure to ensure all the aforementioned conditions is a violation of children's rights. Safeguarding children in Sport/football is a priority both at the national and international level and for this reason the need to implement a child protection policy in sport. Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates that States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse. An important outcome of the UEFA project has been that Football Association of Moldova, under the lead of the UEFA FSR project "Safe football for children In Moldova", are developed attached child protection policy (manual), which was approved by FAM senior management on 15 April 2021. This safeguarding policy has since formed a basic book regarding child safeguarding in Moldova. Methodological aspects of the research: The purpose of research: The sociological study named "Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices for Safeguarding Children in Football" was designed to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) aimed at protecting children involved in football. The research objectives have centered on: - determining the degree of satisfaction of the target groups (coaches, children, parents and football experts having direct or indirect contact with children involved in football) with the football club and its work; - identifying children's perceptions of the degree of safety within the club/football team; - determining perceptions of the risks to which children are/may be subjected while playing football; - identifying the views and attitudes of target groups on safeguarding children in football and the need for the safeguarding measures thereof; - establishing practices for the information of the target group on measures for safeguarding children in football; - identifying the level of knowledge about the rights of the child and protective measures in respect thereof; - establishing the forms of violence and the frequency of their application to children during training sessions; - revealing the knowledge of the target group on reporting the infringements of the rights of the child to enjoy football, including the cases of violence against children. Methods of research. Following the state of emergency declared in the Republic of Moldova in March 2020, due to COVID-19 pandemic, all football clubs shut down for about 5 months. In this context, the research design has been adjusted to the new existing conditions, being determined the need for collecting all the necessary data in online form. Thus, the research has been conducted on the basis of a structured, self-managed online questionnaire via the https://docs.google.com platform, the research tool being adapted for each category of respondents (child, parent, coach). The research community/target groups included respondents from both banks of the Dniester/Nistru River, the total number of participants in the study being of 391 individuals, of whom 204 children (girls and boys attending local football clubs), 75 parents of children attending local football clubs, accompanying their children most frequently (women and men), 57 coaches and 55 managers of football clubs and sports schools. Findings and results. Structure of the sample designed for children The sample was drawn on the basis of existing statistical data on the number of clubs - members of the FAM (Football Association of Moldova) covering the region and number of children (boys/girls) based on their age. The sample was structured at national level based on the following criteria: The geographical coverage - area of activity/place of residence (North, Centre, South, Chisinau, Transnistria). Gender (boys and girls) and age (year of birth 2002-2010). Of the 204 children surveyed, 85.3% (174) are male, and 14.7% (30) are female, about 22% are aged 10-11 years, and 31.4% - 12-13 years, children aged 14-15 years are 31.4%, and those aged 16-17 years only 17.6%. Children from urban areas have a higher share - 61.8%, especially from Chisinau municipality - 38.2%, of the other regions of the country the share of children participating in the study is approximately 20%. Structure of the sample designed for coaches The sample designed for coaches has been nationally structured on the basis of the following criteria: gender of the coach, work experience in football, age/gender of children he/she is providing training for, type of licence and place of residence. In this context, of the total of 57 coaches surveyed, 89.5% (51) are male, and 10.5% (6) are female. Slightly more than half (57.9%) of them are more than 35 years old, whilst 42.1% of them are aged between 25 and 35. About 60% of coaches have a work experience in football of up to 10 years (59.6%) and live in urban areas (61.4%), whilst about 2/3 of coaches provide training for 2 or more teams (64.9%) and, in particular for boys' teams (66.7%). Conclusions and recommendations. The sociological study named "Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices for Safeguarding Children in Football" have pointed out several shortcomings in understanding and taking action in the event of failure to comply with the rights of the child in football, but also on ensuring his/her protection. The main conclusions of the study revealed the following: - a pleasure to play football among children, not being an activity imposed by parents or adults. Approximately the third part of the children want to become great footballers, the vast majority having expanded their circle of friends; - the environment of the football club is rated by the children as being a safe one, they having increased confidence in the staff of the club, while the coaches consider that children are safer outside the club due to the conditions of the clubs, especially the conditions regarding the showers and toilets; - the sports infrastructure is regarded as being in good condition, but there were complaints regarding the existence and condition of the changing rooms, including toilets, bathrooms/showers separated on gender, which reveals a violation of the child's rights to healthy environment and hygiene; - rural football clubs have poor infrastructure, being poorly equipped with toilets inside the club, with aqueduct and sewerage facilities, including access to hot water; - the low participation of parents, children and coaches in information activities is reflected in the level of knowledge about the protection of children in football: the vast majority having a low and medium level of knowledge of the rights of the child; - child protection policy even if it is approved at institutional level, it is not made known to all parents; - the main way of intervention in most cases of violence is communication with the coach, child-victim, child-abuser and their parents; - the referral of cases of violations of children's rights to competent institutions in the field is poorly achieved; only 0.5% of children and one in ten parents would call the Childline. Calling the police is also a rare practice among parents or coaches. Following the study conducted therein, it is recommended: - to appoint a child protection officer at the level of each institution, given that about a third of the coaches know about his/her existence in the football club where he/she works and most parents consider his/her presence very important; - to implement the child protection policy by applying the UEFA tools at the level of all football clubs and sports schools; - to make the FAM responsible for monitoring the implementation of the child protection policy tools by its uniform application at national level; - to carry out a broad information and awareness-raising campaign to inform children and parents about the rights and means of safeguarding children involved in football, given that there is a low level of information and knowledge about the rights of the child; - to make improvements to the training system of coaches and managers of clubs on safeguarding children involved in football, determined by the situation in which knowledge is found to be misapplied in sports activity; - to establish collaboration relationships with Child Protection Authorities, being observed a low number of parents and coaches appealing to them; - to improve the sports infrastructure from the perspective of providing optimal and healthy conditions for the conduct of training sessions and sports activities, determined by the poor equipping of football clubs with changing rooms, showers and separate toilets for girls and boys inside the clubs, with hot water and sewerage facilities, sports equipment, etc.; - to create a non-discriminatory football environment adapted to the needs of all children, including children with disabilities.