In 2010 a group of NGOs and sport organisations from 7 EU countries came together to design a project with the aim to encourage the inclusion and involvement of migrants, (ethnic) minorities and asylum seekers through and in mainstream sport. In 2011, the European Commission started to fund project “Sport Inclusion Network (SPIN)” which aimed to raise awareness about the potential positive role of
sport in terms of social inclusion of migrants and intercultural dialogue. The SPIN project brought together a mix of experienced national key players in the field of countering exclusion and discrimination in sport, including the FARE founding organisation fairplay-VIDC, the Italian sport for all association UISP, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI), the Portuguese FIFPro member association SJPF, the migrant-led MGHRO from Hungary, the multicultural Finnish sport initiative Liikkukaa as well as Camino from Germany, an expert on action-oriented research on sport and youth. After the end of the project in 2012 the same partners continued to work together, for example during a training seminar for working with young people and the exchange of practical methods in 2014. With the launch of the Erasmus+ sport programme the opportunity arised to run the new project “European Sport Inclusion Network”, with a focus on the promotion of equal opportunities of migrants and minorities through volunteering in sport. In 2017 the SPIN partners launched the new project “Sport Welcomes Refugees – Social inclusion of newly arrived migrants in and through sport”. The project aims to provide knowledge, training and qualification to work with the new target groups. It will enhance the social inclusion and participation of newly arrived migrants on different levels of sport through training, awareness-raising and capacity-building of sport stakeholders. Looking at society at large, migrant and ethnic minority women and girls are belonging to the most excluded and vulnerable groups. Across Europe women athletes and players with a migrant or minority background are underrepresented in organised sport and their contribution to sport is often invisible. Against this backdrop the SPIN network developed the project “Sport Inclusion of Migrant and Minority Women” (SPIN Women), which is carried out until teh end of 2020. aims to encourage social inclusion and equal opportunities of women and girls with an immigrant or ethnic minority background through increased participation in sports.
