A/HRC/62/55 African descent, Arabs and people of Arab descent, Muslims, Palestinians, Jewish people, Asians and people of Asian descent, caste-oppressed communities, Indigenous peoples and Roma persons. 6. In the analysis, the Special Rapporteur integrates an intersectional lens, exploring situations in which discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity is compounded by other forms of discrimination, including based on age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, sex characteristics, socioeconomic status, migration status, disability, minority status, Indigenous origin, health status, political or other opinion, religion or belief, or other status.9 The analysis also includes an exploration of systemic and structural forms of racism within sport. A. Poverty and inequitable access 7. Poverty can play a powerful role in shaping who can and who cannot access sports at different levels. There can be significant costs associated with participation in sport, including access to facilities, equipment, coaching, travel and optimal nutrition.10 These high costs are not just associated with elite-level competitions. They often apply at the grass-roots level and create a powerful barrier to children and young people entering sports. High costs can also cause children and young people to drop out prematurely. In addition to a lack of access to the necessary funds within the family, children from low-income backgrounds may also experience spatial segregation, limiting their proximity to resources by virtue of their geographical location.11 Community sports facilities may be unavailable and/or the schools that can be accessed within the geographical location may lack sport-related resources, therefore normalizing exclusion and limiting the aspirations of children and young people. These disparities can create inequitable access across different socioeconomic levels within the same country. Systemic inequalities among countries, whereby low-income countries can have significantly fewer resources to invest in sporting infrastructure, can also have a highly negative impact on the ability of children and young people to access sports. Sports that have higher costs associated with them, including tennis, winter sports, swimming, golf, cycling, motorsports and equestrian sports, may be the most difficult for children from low-income family backgrounds or low-income countries to access.12 The different levels of sports are often connected, with amateur and grass-roots level sports commonly acting as pipelines to the more elite levels. This means that poverty leading to a lack of access to sports among children and young people often has a powerful and lifelong impact on their participation. It can also deprive affected children of the immediate mental and physical health benefits of sport. 8. Poverty and income inequality and the way they impact access to sport are not race neutral. Disparities within and among different countries often arise along racial and ethnic lines. Racially discriminatory underdevelopment, which leads to significant inequalities between countries, is fundamentally embedded in the international economic order as an ongoing and powerful manifestation of colonial injustice. 13 Many individuals from marginalized racial and ethnic groups continue to face disproportionate levels of entrenched poverty as a result of historical exploitation, extractivism, underinvestment in their communities and a lack of decent work opportunities because of the systems of exclusion embedded within economic and financial systems during colonialism. Poverty and income inequality, as manifestations of systemic racism, can further disproportionately impact persons from marginalized racial and ethnic groups who experience intersectional discrimination, including women and girls, persons with disabilities, migrants and/or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons. 9 10 11 12 13 GE.26-07112 A/HRC/57/67, para. 3; and A/HRC/59/62. See A/79/299. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, The Social Impact of Sport: Unlocking the Potential of Sport to Drive Social Transformations (Paris, 2024). See A/69/340 and the Hamilton Commission, Accelerating Change: Improving Representation of Black People in UK Motorsport (2021). See A/HRC/50/60. 3