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Volunteers around the world – valuable experience plus fun?

Most of us must admit that at one point either in earlier or later stages of our lives sport had played an integral part. Perhaps we lived next to (and over time, even became) a “crazy sports fan”; or else we played sports ourselves, whether as a serious pursuit or as a pastime (see previous article). With developed countries slowly recovering from a COVID-19 pandemic outbreak that caused many events to be cancelled or postponed, the summer of 2021 witnessed a resumption of high-profile events, and was dominated by the Tokyo Olympics and the European Football Championship (UEFA EURO 2020(1)) in particular. Although experts have questioned their economic impact this time round, the social capital created by such mega-events still seems clear. Regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or religion, people from across the globe come together, putting aside their differences to enjoy the celebration of life. The most committed ones, the volunteers are even willing to offer their time, skills, and energy to assist with an event in exchange for various benefits.

Volunteering around the world

Image from Unsplash.com

Mega-events – the world of thousands of passionate volunteers 

During the recently finished EURO 2020(1) tournament across the 11 venues around 12,000 volunteers worked on the EURO-project, aged from 18 to 86, representing 113 nations (uefa.com, 2021). They filled several roles within and outside of the stadiums, assisting with accreditation, ceremonies, transport, media, ticketing, match operations and spectator services, to name but a few activities. With the tournament to be held for the first time in 11 different countries to celebrate its 60th birthday, UEFA EURO 2020 was intended to deliver a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all the fans Europe-wide, in which volunteers – very much the backbone of the event – would play a vital role (uefa.com, 2020).

 

Nor should we forget the other flagship sport event which was postponed to 2021 Summer the Tokyo Olympics where they were counting on 80.000 volunteers as an instrumental part of the Summer Olympics. However, this number largely dropped in the final days of the preparation due to the pandemic as a worrying sign of the “dangerous gamble” of the Games. Also, with neither many foreign spectators nor many volunteers allowed into Japan for the Games, we witnessed one of the most controversial games in the past years, whose complex legacy left open several questions for the future (The Washington Post, 2021).

 

But why do we have event volunteers?

In purely financial terms, the contribution made by a free workforce of volunteers to major sporting events has become increasingly important to the event organisers (Cuskelly et al., 2006). From a social aspect (in terms of the chance to acquire social capital as well as experience), for some, often younger volunteers, the opportunity to be involved in a major event has been too good to miss, either to be part of the festival or to experience working in sport. First-time and “one-off” volunteers have made new friends with other like-minded people, while for other, perhaps older and certainly more “serial” volunteers each new event represents a step in a longer volunteering journey that involves staying connected to the sports world, motivated by an overwhelming conviction that they are part of something bigger, something greater (Holmes et al., 2018).

 

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Author:

Griszbacher Norbert

Article Writer & Content Contributor

Norbert Griszbacher article writer at GiLE

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The opinions expressed in this article/publication are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of GiLE or its members.

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