‘We need community’: Bridging the path to desistance from crime with community football

Recidivism costs society, communities, families and individuals. Sport is heralded as an accessible way to engage and incentivise people convicted of crime to change their lifestyles. One high‐profile intervention designed to reduce reoffending rates is the Twinning Project, which invites people serving custodial and community sentences to participate in a football‐based programme to gain accredited qualifications with a major football club in their local region. Our primary objective was to investigate how football, which uses some of the biggest brands and regional allegiances in the United Kingdom, might help to bridge the gap between community and paths to desistance. Using a realist approach, we present interview data from people serving sentences in the community and the coaches and probation officers facilitating intervention programmes at two major British football clubs. Specifically, we conducted interviews with staff and service users serving community sentences in a large British city. Based on social identity perspectives on social exclusion/inclusion, we carried out thematic analysis with the focus on social support, social bonding and resulting future orientation. Thematic analysis revealed four themes: (a) gaps in social support; (b) coach as a role model; (c) increased future orientation; and (d) new ways forward. These themes evidenced the struggles people often face before entering the justice system as well as the capacity of high‐level coaching around a meaningful shared social identity to reduce the salience of these hurdles and elicit a sense of optimism towards the future. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.