Episode 5: Refugees Welcome - Sports Clubs, Coaching and Integration

In this episode of Transforming Sport, I interview Sport and Leisure Cultures research group member Dr Mark Doidge about his research on refugee’s integration into sports clubs and wider communities.  An expert in the political and social role of football fans, Dr Doidge began volunteering his time with charities who work with refugees in Calais and in Brighton during the refugee ‘crisis’ of 2015. Here he discusses the importance of sport clubs as welcoming sites of sociality and integration of communities, both host and refugee, and how coaches can take an active role as brokers of sociality between sport club members. Dr Doidge has a recently published academic article in the International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. He can be found on twitter at @markdoidge, and his other research is accessible via his University of Brighton staff profile page: https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/mark-doidge