Prior to the start of the football World Cup in Russia, the Red Devils reserved time to visit Flamish school children in the role of ambassador for foster care Flanders.
SPLISS researcher Jens de Rycke assesses the social impact of these visits.
Belgium Red Devils and their Social Impact
Belgium has qualified for for the semi-finals at the Russsia 2018 World Cup of football! Although Belgium dreams of its first World Cup success, SPLISS also has a research line focussing on the societal impact of sport role models. In coöperation with the Belgian national football team, we evaluate a national campaign supported by the Belgian Red Devils.
For the so-called Red Devil school campaign, the Red Devils joined forces with the elected social partner Foster Care Flanders. The goal of the campaign is to raise knowledge and awerness for Foster Care Flanders, who is looking for 600 new foster families. With the help of Belgian national football players. Elementary schools in Flanders were asked to become - just like the Red Devils - foster care ambassadors and put Foster Care in the spotlight with a fine, original and striking promotion campaign. The five best schools received a visit of Red Devils at their playground, where they could show the Red Devils what they have done to promote Foster Care.
Our research is focussed on investigating the added value of the partnership with the National football team for Foster Care Flanders and to understand to what extend the Red Devils are effective role models.
Initial results are available - in Dutch only - here. Did you know that Dries Mertens is Belgium's most popular player?
PARA-SPLISS: Able-bodied and parasport sport policy perspectives
PARA-SPLISS.
SPLISS started a PARA-SPLISS research line focussing on Paralympic-athletetic pathways. Jacqueline Patatas - Vrije Universiteit Brussel -- and Aurélie Pankowiak - Victoria University and Vrije Universiteit Brussel - assess the elite sport policy factors that influence Paralympic success. The primary aim of this project is to develop a global understanding regarding the factors that optimise successful development of elite Paralympic patways.
In this newsletter Jacqueline's project is hightlighted. Jacqueline graduated in Physical Education in 2008 in Brazil and and obtained her Master’s degree in Adapted Physical Education at State University of Campinas UNICAMP/Brazil in 2012. She worked for three years at the Brazilian Paralympic Committee’s team, working in the Sports Department as manager of the Brazilian Paralympic Academy and the Classification Department. She was part of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games project, integrating the Paralympic Classification Team during the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. In 2016 she was appointed as Member of the World Taekwondo Federation and the Para-Taekwondo Research and Development Committee.
Jacqueline's findings summarized
16 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with international Paralympic experts from 8 countries. The participants were high-performance directors (HPDs) and other Paralympic specialists, including academics. The findings demonstrate that athlete pathways in parasport are not only sport specific, but also potentially impairment specific.
The SPLISS model was used as a suitable framework to cluster the sport policy factors for international success in disability sports, yet this study illustrates that the contextual factors and sport specific culture of disability sports needs to be taken into consideration when examaning factors that influence parasport policy development. Not only achieving international sporting success, but also in how people with disabilities are treated, and similarly, what kind of support is offered to them in order to promote a platform to improve the lives of all people with disabilities worldwide.
Patatas, J. M., De Bosscher, V., & Legg, D. (2018). Understanding parasport: An analysis of the differences between able-bodied and parasport from a sport policy perspective. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. 10:2, 235-254, DOI:10.1080/19406940.2017.1359649
Publications Positioning in Olympic Winter sports: analysing national prioritisation of funding and success in eight nations (2018). International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. 10:2, 235-254
J. M., De Bosscher, V., & Legg, D. Positioning in Olympic Winter sports: analysing national prioritisation of funding and success in eight nations (2018). European Sport Management Quarterly.Download
Andreas Ch. Weber, Veerle De Bosscher & Hippolyt Kempf.
Talent development programmes: a retrospective analysis of the age and support services for talented athletes in 15 nations (2018).European Sport Management Quarterly, online. Download (free copy, 50)
Veerle De Bosscher & Jens De Rycke.
Convergence and divergence of elite sport policies: is there a one size fits all model to develop international sporting success? An international comparison of the SPLISS in 15 nations. (2018). Journal of Global Sport Management.Download
Veerle De Bosscher, Simon Shibli, Hans Westerbeek, Maarten van Bottenburg
A mixed methods approach to compare elite sport policies of nations. a critical reflection on the use of composit indicators in the SPLISS study (2018). Sport in Society, special issue research methods, online. Download (free copy, max 50)
Veerle De Bosscher.
Measuring competition in the Olympic Winter Games 1992–2014 using economic indices (2017). Managing Sport and Leisure. Download
Andreas Ch. Weber, Hippolyt Kempf, Simon Shibli & Veerle De Bosscher.
Competitive balance trends in elite table tennis: the olympic games and world championships 1988-2016 (2017). Journal of Sports Sciences. Download (free copy, max 50).
Zheng, J., Taeyeon, O., Seungmo K., Dickson, G., De Bosscher, V.
Book chapters Sotiriadou, P. & De Bosscher, V. (2017). Managing high performance sport. In T. Bradbury, O’Boyle (Eds) Understanding sport management, pp. 73-95. London & New York: Routledge. ISBN: 978-1-138-10062-6
Bastos, F.C, Böhme, M.T.S., & De Bosscher, V. (2017). High performance sport policies and climate in different Brazilian governmental levels. In B. Pitt and J. Zhang (Eds). Global Sport Management: Contemporary Issues and Inquiries. World Association for Sport Management series (WASM), pp.109-132. London & New York: Routledge. ISBN: 9781138229617.
SPLISS-related publications Papadimitriou, D., & Alexandris, K. (2017). Adopt an athlete for Rio 2016’: the impact of austerity on the Greek elite sport system. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. Download
Ramon, R. (2017). Critical factors influencing international sporting success of the Philippines: the athletes's perceptive . Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science. Download
Rasmus K. Storm, Klaus Nielsen & Frederik Thomsen. (2016). Can a Small nation be Competitive in the Global Sporting Arms Race? The Case of Denmark. Managing Sport and Leisure. Download
SPLISS is coordinatied by Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) In joint collaboration with:
SPLISS-2.0 partners
Belgium, Université Catholique de Louvain ● Brazil, University of São Paulo ● David Legg, Mount Royal University ● Denmark, Danish Institute for Sports Studies & University of Southern Denmark ● Estonia, National Audit Office of Estonia ● France, Institut National du Sport et de l'Éducation Physique-INSEP ● Finland, KIHU - Research institute for Olympic Sports ● Japan, Waseda University ● United Kingdom, Sport Northern Ireland ● Portugal, Beira Interior University ● Spain, National Institute of Physical Education of Catalonia, INEFC ● South-Korea, Korea Institute of Sport Science ● Switzerland, Swiss Federal Institute of Sport Magglingen SFISM
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