CORPLAY’s mission is to enhance the role of sport in preventing youth radicalization and will be accomplished by promoting and providing specific training for coaches,
sports organizations and physical education teachers to improve their knowledge and ability to deal with youth at risk of radicalization.

 

CORPLAY is an international partnership involving partners from five countries with different backgrounds and from different sectors.

The CORPLAY methodology is based in a bottom-up approach involving grassroots sport organizations, giving importance to locally generated knowledge and experience.

 

CORPLAY aims:

Inclusive approach that could possibly allow to de-radicalize young people, rather than exclude them from sport organizations;
European framework, taking into account the difference between countries and social con- texts and circumstances;

THE CHALLENGE

Radicalization is a social and psychological process of increasing commitment to extremist political or religious ideology, and adolescence is typically a period of maturation in which young people experiment with their identity, group relationships, political ideologies and their place in the world.

Evidence provided by the CORPLAY stories indicates that the effects of racism and exclusion can be found at grassroots level sports organizations, both at professional and at amateur level, and that there is a lack of awareness on the impact that intolerance can have in young people.

Considering the relevance of sport in western society, and the amount of people freely involved in sports activities, it is reasonable to assume that grassroot level organizations have a relevant social responsibility within society.

In the particular case of sport we can observe the same phenomena that characterizes the broader society, such as political, religious, gender, homophobic or other forms of social and cultural violent radicalization.

In order to make sport organizations privileged places to promote de- radicalization, social cohesion and inclusion, it is important to provide managers and coaches, and possibly also parents and young people involved in their sports activities, up-to-date tools to detect and counteract cases of violent radicalization.