WATS was created 4 years ago by Antonio Pipaón, Lander Iraragorri and Alex Navarro. Through various channels, this company seeks to eradicate violence in the world of sports. These three young entrepreneurs have Julen Guerrero, Vicente del Bosque, Xabi Prieto and Jero García, among others, in their network of collaborators. In this interview, Antonio Pipaón talks about the company WATS, the types of violence in sports and related issues.

What is WATS and how was it born?
WATS is a startup born 4 years ago in Mondragon Unibertsitatea, Bilbao, with the mission of becoming an organization for the elimination of violence in sport. The three founders are from the MU environment, from the Mondragon Team Academy. We were amateur athletes, but after going to watch sports games and competitions on the weekends, we saw more violence. When we talk about violence in sports, a conflict comes to mind in the game, the father facing the court, the fights between the players, the threats ...

Going deeper into the subject, what we see is that this violence in sport is like an iceberg. At the top of the water, we see the following actions, but the real problem lies in all the underwater and less explicit actions: abuse, intimidation, threats, harassment, cyberbullying ... Bullying is a more normalized issue today compared to others, such as sex abuse, and we know what the problem is in schools, but when we go into the sports environment we see some locker rooms, mobiles, showers, coaches leaving these 10, 12 or 15 year old girls alone in locker rooms and it is very difficult to deal with all these problems. From this reflection arose our methodology that we worked on at Mondragon University and our intention is to take it to the sports field.

How do you work?
We have 3 lines of action. The first is awareness, that is, we organize different conferences and events in which these people who are members of the company participate. We also have a training section, one aimed at sporting events and the other aimed at families, and we have our own online training platform where we are seeing the pandemic situation we are living in, other problems such as sedentary lifestyle, childhood obesity. .And another important issue is the community, where coaches don’t come, train and disappear, but that content stays there.

The third leg is intervention. What we saw here is that we can be promoting awareness and training, which is great, but we will continue to be victims on a daily basis and we need to see how we can serve those victims. We saw that a channel was needed with a specific phone number to contact a person and provide support service. We have a network of psychologists and mediators in the group and, depending on the case, we will send them to one entity or another. This channel was created in April last year and we have handled 30 cases so far, which confirms that this channel was necessary.

What values ​​does WATS promote?
Something that is important for us is learning as a team, despite the competition. Competition pushes us to get the best version of ourselves, but this competition must be understood from the promotion of values ​​such as inclusion, diversity, team play ... without escaping the competition. On the other hand, there is how we deal with these problems, as the solution to the often violent actions that take place in a stadium is punishment, a ban or taking the parents off the field ... and that is not an integrative solution. It is these fathers and mothers who lead the child to play, who pay the group fee ... so removing the parents doesn’t make much sense. We need to advocate for integrative solutions, starting with training and prevention.

What training do you offer?
We started a couple of years ago with a postgraduate course in Sports Innovation, aimed at people who already have a career in sports. This program begins in October with its third edition.

On the other hand, there is a Master’s in Innovation and Sports Business Management for the profiles of new graduates between the ages of 22 and 28.

Can it be said that violence has increased in sport?
What we can say is that there was less violence in the sport; there is more now. It is true that there may be less physical violence now, but there is ignorance on issues such as abuse, violence, sexual abuse, humiliation and harassment. That’s the part that has grown the most and the most unknown. It seems that the problem does not exist. Recent research on the subject, at European level, says that 75% of athletes have experienced some form of violence during their career, one-third have experienced bullying and one in ten have experienced some form of sexual abuse. So the problem is about these news that are unknown, growing, and very difficult to control.

Why does violence occur in sport?
There are many factors. On one side is the coach; they are untrained people on this subject. From a monitor to people with a majority of federal training, these are untouched topics. There may be coaches who have been training for 20 years and have a lot of technical knowledge, but who do not have a clear concept about sports psychology or conflict resolution.

Then there is the family, whose role is not very clear. They need to understand that sport is an environment for children to enjoy, and that the percentage who will come to live from it is negligible. Therefore, they need to understand that children are more likely to experience some form of bullying or sexual abuse than they are to make a living from football, basketball or handball. The moment families understand this, they need to be an ally of the coach and not the other way around, they start to change their mindset.

What do you think about homosexuality in sports?Football, for better or worse, is the king of the sport, the most powerful sport here in the State and specifically in the Basque Country, and it remains a taboo subject, but the main players who promote it are professional clubs. The subject is not treated as normal. There are other sports where this does not happen and there are international and international athletes of reference in the LGBT community. This is a problem that we have tried to spread as much as possible and we hope to normalize it gradually. It’s a topic we work on in training. We divide sport violence into 6 large blocks of violence and one of them is LGBT violence. It should be treated as more of a violence, to raise awareness about it, to socialize it and to create channels like our phone for people to deal with.

How would you defend entrepreneurship?
Professionally it is a way to develop your hobby, which was our field of sport. Obviously, it’s not a path full of roses, it’s complex and there’s also the theme of the group, which is a key element for us. These may be situations we have experienced right now that have caused many small businesses to close, and you need to know how to adapt. This is why we see that there are many similarities between entrepreneurship and sport. Teaming is an essential area, as is leadership, and you need to know how to adapt to situations and innovate when things get difficult. As with sports, you need to know how to manage problems in a team ... Sports and business have many similarities.

How would you encourage society to practice the sport?
Sport is something that is basic and necessary. Fortunately, there have been councils that have offered dynamics or online exercises to citizens during the pandemic, but that is not the end of it now. We need to move forward and ensure that citizens remain as active as possible and, above all, that developing children remain active. Spending a lot of time without doing this sport and having contact with older members can have serious consequences. It’s important to encourage that, as well as at home, in the family, and for our part we try to give families a little bit of light and advice.

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