International sport policy meets national cultures: reinterpreting qualitative interview data to understand Safe Sport implementation

With challenges related to interpersonal violence in sport as a backdrop, this paper examines how cultural institutions operate across societal contexts and what this means for Safe Sport implementation in six European Mediterranean countries: Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain. In an earlier study, interviews with individuals educating and recruiting coaches (n = 60, 10 from each country) and thematic analysis identified three institutions that constrain Safe Sport implementation: patriarchy, a winning (at-all-costs) attitude and an orientation towards blindness and silence. In this paper, we conduct a theory-driven secondary analysis of the same data, understanding institutions as three pillars(regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive) to examine how these institutions are carried and reproduced across three carriers of interrelated contexts: the state, the family and sport. The analysis demonstrates that the states’ weak regulative role allows these institutions to function, families socialise their members into accepting them and in sport they operate largely unchallenged. For Safe Sport implementation to progress, several carriers of institutions must change relatively simultaneously. States must provide not only laws but protection systems for those who report harm; families must socialise children to recognise and speak about unacceptable behaviour; and sport organisations need structures that support rather than penalise disclosure.