fairplay Initiative: Tackling Discrimination Through Sport in Austria

Based at the Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation (VIDC), fairplay runs anti-discrimination monitoring, school and club workshops, and EU-funded projects that use sport to include marginalized groups. Its 'Let the Girls Play' project works with football clubs in Vienna, Warsaw, Leipzig and Prague to open the sport to more girls, while 'SPIN Refugees' focuses on including refugees through sport, and its International Girls Football Festival has brought together around 100 teenagers from Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia. Now nearly three decades old, it is regularly cited as Austria's most successful organization in winning EU Erasmus+ Sport funding, and clubs and fans can report discrimination incidents directly through its online reporting mechanism.