Characteristics of voluntary sports clubs with targeted initiatives for underrepresented population groups: the role of organisational goals, resources, structure and context

Even though voluntary sports clubs are expected to play an important role in accomplishing the political goal to deliver ‘sport for all’, a number of population groups remain underrepresented in organised sport. Considering this, the aim of this article is to identify organisational characteristics of sports clubs that work strategically to integrate underrepresented population groups by offering targeted initiatives. Logistic regression analyses were conducted using survey data from more than 30,000 sports clubs in nine European countries. Factors within all the four included aspects of organisational characteristics (goals, resources, structure and context) were found to be relevant for the implementation of targeted initiatives. The results also revealed that it was mainly the same factors that were significantly correlated with the propensity of clubs to offer targeted initiatives across all three examined population groups: people with disabilities, people with a migration or ethnic minority background, and people on a low income. In particular, the existence of integration-related goals and service-oriented goals regarding long-term planning (organisational goals) as well as paid staff and paid management (organisational resources) were positively correlated with the presence of targeted initiatives. Regarding organisational characteristics and context, large, young, multisport clubs located in an urban setting were found to be more inclined to offer targeted initiatives. Having identified a number of club-related factors relevant for the presence of targeted initiatives, our study can inform policy implementation that seek to increase participation of underrepresented population groups in organised sport.