Where is interpersonal violence in the academic sport integrity discourse? A systematic review of the scientific literature

Interpersonal violence in sport, especially against athletes, is a prevalent problem and arguably one of the greatest threats to sport integrity. While addressing the issues of sport integrity is at the forefront of media, sport policies and research, it is unclear whether violence in sport is being discussed amongst the sport integrity literature. The aim of present research is to analyze the scientific literature on sport integrity breaches to understand the extent to which and in what ways interpersonal violence has been discussed therein. Four databases (Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCOhost and PubMed) were systematically searched for peer reviewed articles in English, published between 2010 and 2020. Key words which operationalized integrity issues (e.g., integrity, corruption, doping, fraud, human-trafficking), with the exclusion of specific terms for violence were used in the search strategy. A total of 8454 studies were identified in the initial search. Following two rounds of independent screening by two reviewers, 1408 relevant articles were included. As per preliminary analysis, only 20 of these articles broadly discuss violence as a sport integrity issue. The articles mainly focus on doping (63%), and, to a lesser extent on (illegal) gambling/betting (13%) and match-fixing (4%). Our initial analysis suggests that interpersonal violence is minimally discussed in the broader sport integrity literature. The thematic analysis will further explore how interpersonal violence is defined and operationalized in the sport integrity literature. In our presentation we will argue for a better integration of the concept of interpersonal violence in the sport integrity literature