Interview
with Julián Vojtech

Introduction and Personal Background

1. Can you briefly describe your role and involvement in the sport sector?
My relationship with sport goes back much further than my professional career. I grew up with competitive table tennis and football, and sport has remained a constant part of my life.

Professionally, my connection with sport began after university when I joined the National Sport Centre, initially working in information and communication technologies. Since then, I have had the opportunity to combine sport with digital technologies, information systems, education and communication.

Today, as a freelancer, I continue to work with different organisations and stakeholders in the Slovak sport environment, including the Slovak Olympic and Sport Committee, the Slovak Olympic Academy and the National Sport Centre. I have also been involved in international projects and initiatives where technology, education and sport intersect.

One particularly interesting experience was providing technical and digital support for sporting events organised during the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2016.

So, although I am not a professional athlete, I have spent much of my professional life working behind the scenes of sport.

2. Based on your personal experience, how would you describe the sport system in your country?
I would describe it as a system with a great deal of enthusiasm and expertise, but also with room for better coordination and modernisation.

Slovakia has many excellent people in sport, from athletes and coaches to administrators, teachers and volunteers. The challenge is often connecting these people and their knowledge effectively.

I also think we need to look at sport in a broader way. Sport policy should not focus exclusively on competitive performance. It should also consider physical education, lifelong physical activity, health, education, digital skills, community development and accessibility.

From my perspective, one of the biggest opportunities is to use modern technologies to connect these areas rather than treating them separately.

Inclusion in Sport and Social Development

3. From your experience, how is inclusion promoted within sport in your country?
Sport has an unusual ability to make people equal, at least for a moment. When you play football, table tennis or run together, your social position, profession or background becomes much less important. You are simply another participant or teammate.

However, we should not assume that sport is automatically inclusive. It can also reproduce inequalities if participation depends on money, location, technology, physical accessibility or social networks.

I believe inclusion therefore begins with accessibility. People need to have genuine opportunities to participate, and those opportunities need to be visible and welcoming.

Digital tools can help here. They can make information about activities more accessible, connect people with opportunities and create new forms of participation. In any case, in my opinion, technology should support inclusion, not become another barrier.

4. Have you been involved in or observed initiatives that use sport to promote equality or inclusion?
Yes. My professional involvement in sport has given me the opportunity to observe many initiatives connecting sport with education, young people and social inclusion.

What I find particularly interesting is the combination of physical activity with digital and educational elements. Young people are already living in a digital environment, so instead of presenting technology and sport as opposites, we should find ways to connect them.

For example, digital platforms can encourage participation, provide information about activities, facilitate communication between participants or help young people track their progress.

At the same time, we should never lose the human element. A digital platform cannot replace the experience of being part of a team, meeting another person or helping somebody face a challenge.

5. What barriers to inclusion have you personally observed in sport environments?
The barriers are not always obvious. There are the traditional ones – financial limitations, inadequate infrastructure, geographical distance or lack of suitable programmes. Anyway, there are also information barriers. People cannot participate in something if they do not know that it exists.

There is also a digital divide. We often assume that everyone has the same access to devices, connectivity and digital skills. That is not necessarily true.

Another barrier can be psychological. Some people simply do not feel that a particular sport environment is “for them”.

And finally, there can be institutional barriers. Sometimes organisations work within their own structures without sufficiently communicating with schools, municipalities, communities or other organisations.

Inclusion therefore requires more than opening the door. We have to make sure people know where the door is and feel comfortable walking through it.

6. How can sport organisations better contribute to reducing inequalities through sport participation?
I would encourage organisations to think much more about the user experience. Ask people what prevents them from participating. Do not assume that we already know the answer.

Sport organisations could also use technology more effectively to communicate opportunities, simplify registration, provide accessible information and connect different communities. But technology should always be combined with personal contact.

I also strongly believe in partnerships with schools. Schools can reach young people who might never approach a sports club independently. This is particularly important for children who do not come from families with a strong sporting tradition.

And finally, we should recognise that inclusion is not a one-off event. It is a continuous process.

Sustainability in Sport

7. From your experience, how is sustainability discussed or addressed in sport organisations or programmes?
I think sustainability is increasingly present in discussions about sport, but we still have a lot of work to do in translating the concept into everyday practice.

My perspective is perhaps slightly different because I naturally look at the digital side.

Digitalisation can reduce some forms of environmental impact – for example, reducing unnecessary paper, improving communication or making administration more efficient.

However, we should not automatically assume that digital means sustainable. Data centres consume energy; electronic equipment has an environmental footprint and constant technological upgrades generate waste.

So, sustainability requires us to ask whether a technology is genuinely useful and whether its benefits justify its impact.

8. Have you been involved in or observed sustainable practices in sport?
Yes, particularly through the development of digital systems and platforms supporting sport and physical education.

A well-designed digital system can make processes more efficient and reduce duplication. It can help organisations share information rather than maintaining multiple disconnected systems.

I also personally enjoy activities such as walking and spending time in nature. For me, this represents another side of sustainable sport.

You do not always need an expensive facility or complicated equipment to be physically active. Sometimes the most sustainable sports infrastructure is already there – nature, public spaces, parks, walking paths and local communities.

9. What challenges exist in implementing sustainable practices in sport?
One major challenge is that sustainability often requires thinking beyond the immediate event or project.

Sport organisations are naturally focused on delivering competitions, activities and programmes. It can be difficult to find the time and resources to think about what happens afterwards.

Another challenge is the temptation to adopt technology simply because it is new. Innovation is not automatically progress. We need to ask whether a new application, platform or device improves participation, accessibility or efficiency.

There is also a financial challenge. Sustainable solutions may require investment at the beginning, while their benefits appear only later.

10. What actions could sport organisations take to better contribute to sustainable development goals?
I would recommend starting with better planning and better information. Organisations should understand their environmental, social and economic impacts and identify where small changes could make a significant difference.

They should also use technology strategically – not simply because it is fashionable. For example, digital registration, communication and information systems can reduce administration and improve efficiency. Data can help organisations understand participation patterns and identify groups that are being left behind.

Sport organisations should also make better use of public spaces and nature for physical activity.

And I would strongly recommend connecting sustainability with education. If children learn that walking or cycling to sport, respecting nature and avoiding unnecessary consumption are normal parts of an active lifestyle, the impact can continue throughout their lives.

International Cooperation and Sport Diplomacy

11. Have you had personal experience with international sport cooperation or partnerships?
Yes, throughout my professional career, I have participated in international conferences, projects and initiatives and have worked with partners from different countries. My involvement in European sport activities has shown me how valuable international exchange can be.

Technology makes this cooperation even easier today. People can exchange information, organise meetings, develop materials and collaborate across borders almost immediately.

However, I have also learned that technology cannot replace personal relationships. The most successful partnerships are based on trust, and trust develops when people get to know one another.

12. How can sport contribute to strengthening relationships between countries?
Sport provides a very natural environment for people from different countries to meet.

An international competition may bring together athletes who do not speak the same language, have different cultural backgrounds and live thousands of kilometres apart. Yet they understand the basic rules of the game and share the same sporting experience. This is very powerful.

Sport also creates opportunities for coaches, administrators, teachers and young people to meet. These relationships can continue long after a competition or project ends. In that sense, sport diplomacy does not only happen at the highest political level. It happens every day among ordinary people involved in sport.

13. Do you think international sport collaborations can contribute to global partnerships and development?
Absolutely. International sport projects can bring together organisations with different expertise. One partner may be strong in education, another in technology, another in inclusion and another in event organisation. 

The result can be much stronger than anything one organisation could develop independently. European projects are particularly valuable because they create structured opportunities for this exchange. However, I think the real measure of a partnership is what happens after the project ends. If the partners continue communicating, sharing knowledge and developing new initiatives, then the partnership has created something sustainable.

Future Perspectives and Recommendations

14. Based on your experience, what improvements could strengthen inclusion in sport?
I would put accessibility and communication at the centre. We need to make sport opportunities easier to discover and easier to access. Digital platforms can help, but they need to be designed with different users in mind. Not everybody has the same digital skills or needs.

I would also encourage more cooperation between sport organisations, schools and local communities. And perhaps most importantly, we should involve young people themselves in designing sporting activities. If we want young people to adopt sport as a lifestyle, we need to understand what motivates them today rather than simply reproducing the models that worked for previous generations.

15. What strategies could help sport organisations contribute more effectively to sustainable development goals?
First, organisations need to understand that the sustainable development goals are not something separate from sport. Health, education, equality, sustainable communities and partnerships are already part of what sport can deliver.

Second, organisations should establish measurable objectives. 

Third, they should use digitalisation to improve efficiency and inclusion, while remaining conscious of its environmental footprint.

Fourth, they should invest in education and lifelong learning for their staff and volunteers.

And finally, they should cooperate. A small sports organisation cannot be expected to become an expert in everything. Partnerships allow organisations to share knowledge and resources.

16. What opportunities exist for sport to promote international cooperation and understanding between countries?
The possibilities are in my view enormous. International competitions are the obvious example, but I would go further.

We can have international youth exchanges, joint digital projects, online educational programmes, shared training resources, international volunteering, coach education and collaborative research.

Digital technology is particularly interesting because it can connect young people before they ever meet physically.

Imagine two groups of young people from different countries working together on a sporting challenge, creating digital content, learning about each other’s culture and then meeting physically afterwards.

That combination of digital and physical interaction could be very powerful.

17. Is there any personal experience or example related to sport and sustainable development that you would like to share?
Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned from sport is that technology should never become the goal. Technology is a tool. The goal is people.

When I look back at more than twenty years of working around sport and digital technologies, the projects I remember most are not necessarily the most technically sophisticated ones. They are the projects where technology helped people communicate, participate, solve a problem or create something together.

That is also how I see the future. We should use digital innovation to make sport more accessible, more attractive and more sustainable – but we should never allow the digital world to replace the human experience that makes sport valuable in the first place.

Sport is ultimately about people moving, meeting, competing, cooperating and learning. Technology can make that experience better. It cannot replace it.

Bratislava, 3 March 2026