ABSTRACT
Sports development and young people is presently a topic with many facets. Historically there was a strong link between the evolution of sport in Europe and the targets and goals that European societies were trying to achieve in the education and development of young people. In many cases it was young people who, in their leisure time or in their time at school, gave forms of play and sports their specific character. Scholars of these historical roots find this special relationship between the evolution of sport and the culture of the young in the view of German philanthropists of the late eighteenth century, such as Johann Christoph Gutsmuths, and in the reformed public schools of Thomas Arnold and his followers in the United Kingdom of the nineteenth century. Outside Europe, it should be noted that the beginnings of the sports movement, in America and Asia for example, have to be regarded as closely connected to the evolution of the respective educational systems for young people and the ensuing development of youth sport culture. This connection is seen most prominently when you remember the goals of the young Olympic Movement. In 1894 Pierre de Coubertin was able to reanimate the ancient Olympic Games by inviting the youth of the world – every four years – to engage in fair sporting competition in major cities all over the world. Thus, one of the oldest and most important sports organisations was initiated, the International Olympic Committee (IOC). For over a hundred years, the IOC has stimulated the evolution of sport and youth sport through its various programmes. The current introduction of the Youth Olympic Games by the IOC with the support of the International Federations (IFs) in 2010 underlines this special role (IOC, 2007a). At the same time groundbreaking changes between the evolution of sport and youth culture are
detectable, which creates a gradual separation of the traditional relationship. The evolution of organized sport and its federations is nowadays less a result of new impulses and the input of youth culture but the reaction to other impulses and interests such as technical innovation and economic enterprises. In contrast these impulses and interests in our modern world increasingly clash with the needs and interests of the younger generation, for example where playing is not allowed in streets, squares and neighbourhoods anymore because it has simply become too dangerous. This process does not make it impossible that a new sporting scene can evolve
and that kids and youngsters can recapture the lost ground for their activities, as the example of ‘parcours’ in the high-rise ghetto-like neighbourhoods of big cities shows. It also demonstrates that new youth culture, and especially movement, play and sport, starts outside organized sports and grows rapidly without the involvement of major sports organizations. In Europe, this pattern of innovation in sport has been obvious over the last 15 years.
Informal sports settings, sports activities and fun events incorporated with popular music attract and activate more kids and youths than the regulated competitive and recreational sports within sports organizations (de Knop et al. 1996; Naul et al. 1998; Telama et al. 2002). However, as examples will show later, international sports organizations like the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)/Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and the IOC do countenance new types of sports activities and events, which address social inclusion, and moral demands outside the traditional systems of organized competitive junior sport. Currently, it is possible to identify three prevalent sports settings in which kids and young people experience their physical activity (PA) and sport: curricular and extra-curricular physical and sports education at schools (PESS); physical activities and sport at sport/social clubs outside the education system (PASC); and informal PA settings (IPAS) and sports activities outside schools and sports/ social clubs. International organizations with activities in the educational and sports sectors play an
important role in the first two settings. But there are also international sporting goods companies, social trusts and varied sports organizations, which are especially involved in the third setting with modern lifestyle events and in the frame of social work with ‘street work sport culture’ (e.g. UEFA and streetfootballworld). National and international sports organizations are today well aware of these transitions and changes in young people’s physical activity developments, because recruitment of young people for organized sports – competitive and non-competitive – is more difficult today. Particularly in Western countries, the involvement of young people in organized sports activities occurs increasingly early in childhood. However, young people’s commitment to organized sports and participation in organized physical activities is also declining in their later teenage years. The slogan for membership recruitment of young people for sports organizations: ‘the earlier – the better’ has changed into ‘the more attractive and diverse – the longer’ to achieve more sustainable membership of young people in sports organizations. For most international organizations, with activities in the education and sports sector, PESS
and PASC are their settings of interest. But there are foundations, like the Dutch Johan Cruyff Foundation, or organizations like ‘streetfootballworld’, that are only active in the third setting with street work activities and projects of ‘social development through sports’.
