Bridging the divide: The role of sport events in contributing to social development between disparate communities

Abstract

Sport events offer valuable experiences to participants, supporters, and other stakeholders while its impacts are of significant economical, political, social and psychological importance. From a social perspective, sport has been described as a language which all people in the world understand and speak and which is able to emotionally unite groups (Dyreson 2003). However, despite the increased recognition and use of sport and event projects as important contributors to the social fabric of multicultural societies, evaluations of inter-community sport events for the purposes of social development have largely been overlooked.