Review: Taking a stand in sports—Together against extremism
The event on December 3, 2025, at the Sportarena Wien as part of the fairplay prevention project focused on the opportunities offered by sport in prevention work. In recent years, the project has shown how clubs, associations, and training facilities can become important partners in the fight against extremism.
Sport creates opportunities for people to meet, conveys values such as fairness, respect, and solidarity, and thus opens up spaces where there is no room for exclusion and radicalization. Representatives from organized sports, extracurricular youth work, martial arts clubs, and gyms, as well as researchers in the field of extremism, took part in the conference and discussed the need for extremism prevention in sport.
The event was moderated by Viktoria Mall.
The opening panel with Sybille Straubinger (VIDC), Ingo Mach (ÖFB), Martin Poiger (Judo Austria), Stephan Hegyi (S.C. Hakoah), and Dieter Brosz (BMWKMS) discussed the different approaches to prevention work in their respective fields. The high relevance of work within sports structures became clear in order to ensure an inclusive space without exclusion, hatred, and extremism in the future.
The keynote speech by Evrim Erşan Akkılıç, research associate at the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance (DÖW), dealt with Turkish fascism in the form of the Ülkücü movement and its activities in Austria. She analysed the role of sports in popularising right-wing extremist symbolism and narratives.
After a short break, Michael Schmied from fairplay prevention presented the 2025 monitoring report entitled “Misanthropic ideologies in combat sports—toxic masculinity, right-wing extremism, and networks.”
The report clearly showed that martial arts (specifically full-contact martial arts) in Austria are by no means an apolitical field, but increasingly serve as a sounding board for authoritarian and discriminatory worldviews. Particularly striking is the staging of toxic masculinity cultures that portray physical superiority, dominance, and violence as virtues, thereby promoting right-wing extremist, anti-feminist, and Islamist narratives.
The entire report is available here as pdf-Download.
During the subsequent panel discussion, colleagues from research, practice, and administration engaged in dialogue with one another.
Katharina Weichselbraun (Feminist Fighters Union), Sebastian Öhner (Vienna Children and Youth Advocacy), Michael Kinhamer (Streetwork Vienna), Erik Hacker (SCENOR), and Florian Zeller (DÖW) discussed the different approaches and possibilities of monitoring and classified the current challenges in prevention work. It became clear that, in addition to right-wing extremist actors in sports, Islamist ideologies in the form of online radicalization are also a major issue. The two ideologies, which at first glance may appear diametrically opposed, are linked by several narratives, such as the rejection of queer people, anti-Semitism, and misogyny.
All stakeholders considered a society-wide approach to prevention work to be positive and necessary.
After the lunch break, two in-depth sessions took place.
In the workshop with Lisa Kremling and Cedric Kyoni Kyungu (fairplay workshop leaders), practical methods for working with young people on the topic of preventing extremism were played through together. The practitioners from social work and sports initiatives who were present were thus able to gain an insight into the workshops offered by fairplay and take away some methods/games for their work.
The session entitled “Quo vadis Extremism Prevention” addressed the gaps, challenges, and necessities in prevention work in sports. Several participants emphasized the need to raise awareness about extremism. This could take the form of educational training for coaches and club officials. Collaboration with role models who may themselves have had a radical background was considered positive. Finally, it was unanimously emphasised that dialogue with politicians is absolutely necessary in order to further promote prevention work in sport.
