“You have 60 minutes to do what you can’t do in real life. You can be violent”: young athletes’ perceptions of violence in sport

Various forms of violence against youth are documented in sport. To date, young athletes’ perceptions of violence in sport remain relatively unstudied. The objective of this study was to examine how violence and its various manifestations in sport have been understood by young athletes. In total, 60 athletes from a variety of sports and ages (12–17 years old) participated in nine semi-structured focus groups. The interview data were submitted to a thematic analysis using NVivo. Results obtained showed that various motivations for participating in sport influenced the ways in which young athletes addressed violence in this context. Additionally, the findings showed that violence in sport is a concept that young athletes partially understand. Even if most of them described various forms of violence in sport, some forms were misunderstood or have not been addressed at all. Finally, young athletes provided their own explanations of this issue in sport. From their perspective, violence in sport can be seen as part of the sport, a strategy to achieve competitive success on the field, a protective mechanism or a result of the valorisation of violence in sport by peers, parents, coaches and sport organisations. Considering that some young athletes normalised violence in sport, it seems crucial to make prevention efforts targeting social norms in sport.