Minor athletes in professional sports

Minor athletes as children experience various welfare issues such as abuse and economic exploitation when participating in professional sports. Using the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), this academic research locates minor athletes within the intersection of human rights and sport. Those welfare issues are analysed as violations of and risks to children’s rights illustrating a serious incompatibility of professional sports with the CRC. Addressing this incompatibility necessitates a recognition by sport of its corporate responsibility to respect the rights of minor athletes. To fulfil this responsibility, professional sports should adopt a policy commitment to embed children’s rights into its institutional culture, a children’s rights due diligence process to identify and tackle violations and adverse impacts, and a remediation process to redress actual harms that occur. Minor athletes and their rights need to be at the heart of the governance of professional sports giving them voice in the system.