This report details the Child Abuse in Sport: European Statistics or CASES project- funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus+ Collaborative Partnership Programme and led by Edge Hill University. The focus of the project was to assess the prevalence of interpersonal violence against children in sport and data was collective through an online questionnaire developed by the CASES team.
The results found that most of the respondents had a good experience of sport as children, with only 7% reporting a poor or very poor experience. However, 65% of respondents had experienced a form of interpersonal violence as a child outside of sport and 73% in a sports context- the most common form of abuse being psychological violence. Additionally, those from ethnic minority backgrounds were more likely to suffer abuse in sports as children.
This important piece of research can help us identify signs of abuse in children in a sports context and help shape protection for young people in the future.