The needs of disabled fans must not be ignored when sports stadiums reopen to spectators (original) (raw)
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Managing Sport and Leisure
Our aim in this short article is to provide an analysis of the implications of reopening football stadium doors to a group that have not been at the forefront of management considerationdisabled spectators. In order to achieve this aim, we uphold a social model approach to disability to review the current spectator sport situation across English professional football and outline the problems posed for disabled fans. We then provide the context to disabled people's experiences in football fandom which have often been unsatisfactory. This context then underpins a series of implications that will arise from the reopening of stadia in England. To conclude this commentary, we provide several management recommendations that we argue should facilitate a more disability-inclusive restart for spectator sport.
In the context of 'Sport for All' we begin by considering the dominant understandings of disability found within society, the medical and social models. Despite a somewhat simplistic binary, these models speak to the different ways in which disabled people are ‘visible’ in sport and leisure. Attention then focuses on separate and integrated provision and we consider the different circumstances and identify the problems and merits associated with each type of provision. In doing this, it is not our intention to present one type of provision as better than the other and our coverage is not exhaustive. Rather we hope this paper offers an insight into the possibilities and challenges that emerge when enabling disabled people to participate in sport and leisure.
Major sporting events and geographies of disability
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Major sporting events for athletes with disabilities have become part of a strategic agenda to create positive social legacies for those typically marginalized in their communities. These events are subject to strict guidelines set forth by the International Paralympic Committee to deliver broad based accessibility. In some cases, changes to accessibility are temporary, where in others upgrades remain as permanent fixtures for venues, transportation, and public spaces. However, the temporality at the heart of major event projects can also work against long-term, sustainable improvements to the material conditions persons with disabilities face as they experience the urban realm. In this paper, we draw upon case studies of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and the Toronto 2015 Parapan American Games to explore the value of major sporting events in delivering urban accessibility improvements and offer a critical commentary on the limitations of the event project to herald sustainable change.
European Sport Management Quarterly, 2016
Research question: To which extent do Disabled Supporters Associations (DSAs) contribute to improve access of fans with disabilities to football? This research question addresses two interrelated gaps: The lack of attention to supporters in European policies on inclusion in and through sport, and the excessive focus on physical barriers over other dimensions of access in both policy and research on disability and sport. Research methods: The study uses visual auto-ethnography. Seven disabled supporters, members of three different DSAs at football clubs in England took part in the study. They were asked to take photographs of their life as a supporter over a period of eight weeks, and were interviewed at the end to discuss and clarify the meaning of the pictures. Results and Findings: Attention to physical spaces is not enough to ensure inclusivity in the stands. Further dimensions need attention by clubs, including knowledge, relationships and participation, and power of advocacy. DSAs have the potential to play a pivotal role in helping clubs improving their provisions for disabled fans, since they act as both a social forum a point of contact for clubs, but they are hampered for their lack or resources and clubs' almost exclusive focus on physical access. Nind and Seale's multi-dimensional model of access for the disabled is one useful way of interpreting these results. Implications: Conceptual understandings of access and inclusion can be broadened by using Nind and Seale's model. Policies addressing inclusion in football should focus not only on those doing sport, but also on those spectating.
Toward an understanding of the needs of sport spectators with disabilities
2006
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Leisure Sciences, 2016
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