Sports are often viewed as a positive platform to develop young people. Alongside the individual benefits, sport participation has also been associated with facilitating social inclusion and developing social capital. European politicians, for instance, share a strong belief that sports is a platform for integration (Agergaard, 2018). This illustrative comparative study investigates the experiences of young refugee participating in two different sport programs for the integration of refugees in the US and in Sweden. Both the Swedish and the US data collection following an interpretative paradigm and used a phenomenological methodology to understand the participants’ experiences of the sport-programs. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews with eight former program participants in the US program and with seventeen youth with refugee background participating in Swedish sport clubs. In this light, we aim in this study to 1) describe a US-based and a Sweden-based sport program for young refugees; 2) summarize their key outcomes to present suggestions for practice. The results of this study show that sport can play a significant role to facilitate wellbeing and the ability to cope with one’s everyday life in the short term. However, integration in the long term can be more problematic. Both the Swedish and the US model can reduce opportunities to provide preferred refugee sport programs that align with long term youth development. We see that integration trough sport can evolve short-term and/or isolated tryout activities, as in that contribute to refugee young people becoming, as Agergaard et al. (2016) note, recipients of activities and “customers” in a welfare project rather than athletes with their own will and desires. Therefore, young refugees will not have the same access to community sport (e.g., life-long participation strategies) that young people born in Sweden and in the US have, and they will not meet on an equal level playing field when they participate in sport practices. Sustainability must be a foundational consideration throughout all stages of designing, implementing, operating, and evaluating programs serving newcomers. Otherwise, the ability of organizations and programs to meet the needs of their target populations in a long-term capacity vanishes.

Agergaard, S., Michelsen la Cour, A., & Treumer Gregersen, M. (2016). Politicisation of migrant leisure: A public and civil intervention involving organized sports. Leisure Studies, 35(2), 200–214. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/02614367.2015.1009848 Agergaard, S. (2018). Rethinking sports and integration. Developing a Transnational Perspective on Migrants and Descendants in Sports. London: Routledge.