Sports & Physical Education at University: The Dual Career of Athletes Programme at the University of Foggia in Italy

Since 2012 the European Commission is still promoting the Dual Career of Athletes Programme, namely the possibility for students involved in elite sports too to integrate, without unreasonable efforts, the excellence sporting path with the educational one. Under investigation are the institutions and education systems that organize and regulate both sports and education, because it would seem unprofitable to talk about a good integration between sports and education where the competences gained in the first context do not pass as a value and a resource in the second one and vice versa. To be in line with the European Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes, the University of Foggia is part of the new European policies aimed at implementing this programme too, in order to reconcile high performance in sport with university education. The aim of this paper is to present the Dual Career of Athletes Programme at the University of Foggia in Italy in order to optimize the student-athlete sporting commitment, not affecting only university studies but also the future job placement to which the student-athlete will be called when the sporting career will be over. From this perspective, the University of Foggia wants to reach a sharing of intentions on the part of the social systems involved, including school, sports committee and sports federations, in order to renew a vision of student-athlete.