Volume 4, Issue 2

This paper wants to show that soccer did not become a men’s game until the 1950’s. It proposes the thesis that the difference of the sexes had no significance in the beginning of soccer in the 19th century. In contrast to our everyday knowledge, the order of the sexes had been established as a universal organizing principle at the same time with imposing functional differentiation as primary principal of social structure in modern societies. Parallel to social structure, gender has also become an organizing principle of modern soccer. This process started at the end of the 18th century as the “polarization of the gender characters” und was justified referring to differences in physical achievements between women and men. The exclusion of the women actually took place between 1921 and 1955 in the form of official bans from the national soccer associations. The abolition of these bans at the beginning of the 1970’s can be understood as the invention of a new sport discipline: women’s soccer.

Despite the immense social, cultural, economical and political increase in sport’s importance in late modern societies, the academic discipline of ‘sports geography’ has received relatively little attention; either from geographers or from sport scientists. From a German perspective, it is therefore mandatory to argue for the discovery of a sub discipline whose existence has been completely neglected in Germany and whose rise, not surprisingly, is mainly occurring in the English speaking world. The article therefore tries to outline the prospects of sports geography research and drafts the state of the art of the discourse of ‘sport and space’ which is of central importance within the field of sports geography. Summary This article focuses on the question how athletes in top-level sports can coordinate their studies at university and their sports career. The problem of coordinating studies and top-level sports is presented as a problem of social inclusion. Drawbacks and opportunities of structural changes in universities that could diminish the athletes’ problem of inclusion are reflected on the basis of organization theory. Finally it is being discussed how universities can meet the expectations of top-level sports, and in which manner networks can contribute to co-operation between the participating organizations to assist top-level athletes who work on a college degree.

Zusammenfassung Spitzensport zu betreiben und gleichzeitig ein Hochschulstudium zu absolvieren, scheint unter den derzeitigen Umständen nahezu unmöglich. Der Artikel konstruiert dieses Phänomen der Unvereinbarkeit zweier Karrieren zunächst gesellschaftstheoretisch als Inklusionsproblem. Da eine merkliche Verbesserung der Situation der Athleten letztlich nur auf Seiten der Hochschule erwartet werden darf, werden anschließend aus organisationstheoretischer Perspektive die dortigen Möglichkeiten und Grenzen interner Strukturveränderungen reflektiert. Schließlich wird diskutiert, wie Hochschulen mit den Erwartungen des Spitzensports umgehen können und in welcher Weise sich im Rahmen von Netzwerken womöglich doch Kooperationsbeziehungen zwischen den beteiligten Organisationen zugunsten studierender Spitzensportler aufbauen lassen.