This essay explores the mechanisms preventing women from undertaking coaching education in professional soccer, as well as the factors at work when women abandon such education. The focus here is the influence of gender stereotypes on the exclusion of females from coaching education and on discrimination against them during education. Systems theory provides the background of an explanatory model designed to explain in detail the impact of such stereotypes on different system levels (society, organization, interaction) and the resulting exclusion of women from coaching education. A qualitative interview study in a regional association of the German Football Association (DFB) reveals that the exclusion of women often begins before they even start coaching education.

Statistics published by the German Football Association indicate that women are significantly under-represented amongst soccer coaches, especially in the amateur leagues. In this paper we analyse how gender stereotypes influence the structural conditions surrounding the recruitment of coaches to soccer clubs that contribute to the exclusion of women from coaching positions. A qualitative study of five selected soccer clubs which are members of a German regional soccer association reveals that informal and personal decision-making practices still play a fundamental role in the recruitment of coaches. These practices undermine formal guidelines and give disproportionate weight to stereotyped preferences in the recruitment of soccer coaches. In this context, decisionmakers' (functionaries') professed support of women largely serves a symbolic purpose and creates an illusion of equality concerning decisions that have already been taken at an informal level.

Zusammenfassung Verschiedene Studien zur Sportpartizipation zeigen auf, dass insbesondere Mädchen und Frauen mit Migrationshintergrund in Sportvereinen proportional untervertreten sind. Während die Ursachen für die geringe Teilhabe am organisierten Sport in zahlreichen Analysen auf Seiten der Mädchen und Frauen mit Migrationshintergrund verortet werden, wird hingegen die Integrationsfähigkeit von Sportvereinen bislang kaum differenziert betrachtet. Der vorliegende Beitrag nimmt darum den Sportverein in seinen spezifischen Organisationsstrukturen in den Blick. Auf der Grundlage eines organisationstheoretischen Zugangs werden die Strukturen von Sportvereinen dahingehend be­leuchtet, inwieweit diese Integration überhaupt zulassen. Im Zuge dieser Analyse werden Barrieren identifiziert, die die Integration von Mädchen und Frauen mit Migrationshintergrund in den Verein stören, erschweren oder verhindern können. Gleichzeitig werden Möglichkeitsbedingungen für die Integration der Zielgruppe benannt und in der Organisationsstruktur von Sportvereinen verortet.

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