Relation Between Athletes’ Attitudes on Sports and Their Exposure to Various Forms of Physical Violence

Abstract

Sport is an extremely common activity that significantly influences all of society. A survey of available literature and studies conducted so far points to the existence of the phenomenon of fan violence, espe- cially in soccer. Given that there are no studies on violence from the perspective of Croatian athletes, this paper explores the relation between the frequency of experiencing physical violence and athletes’ attitudes on sports. 135 adult athletes, including men (n=74) and women (n=61), from individual and team sports from the city of Zagreb, participated in the research. The athletes have completed the ques- tionnaire voluntarily and anonymously. The results obtained in this research point to egalitarian attitudes in terms of athletes’ sex, for instance, the majority of the respondents did not agree with the attitude that “Men’s sports are more valuable than women’s sports”. The athletes agreed mostly with the attitude that “Pain, injuries and dangers are an integral part of sport, which athletes have to accept”. “Training and competing in spite of pain, injury or exhaustion” is a situation of physical violence that the respondents most often experience. The correlations obtained in the research ranged from light (r=-0,171) to real (r=0,518), negative and positive, and were mostly statistically significant. The research results indicate the importance of education on risk behaviours and attitudes for all those involved in sports activities from the very beginning in order to prevent long-term physical and psychological consequences.