Munich Has a Free Government Program Built Just to Get Migrant Kids Into a Sports Club, Almost Nobody Uses It

The Official Rule

If you’re a migrant family in Munich wondering whether “just join a Verein” is realistic advice when you don’t know anyone, don’t speak much German yet, and have no idea which of Munich’s hundreds of sports clubs would actually welcome you, there’s a specific federal program built exactly for this gap, and most families never hear about it.

“Integration durch Sport” (IdS) is a real, long-running federal program, not a pilot or a one-off initiative. DOSB’s own program page confirms organized sport has run this program since 1989, coordinated by the Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund (DOSB) in close coordination with the Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI) and the Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF). Nationwide, about 1,531 clubs are affiliated with the program, and roughly 890 of those hold the specific status of “Stützpunktverein”, clubs equipped and funded to run dedicated, low-barrier sports offers for people with a migration or refugee background.

In Munich specifically, the program runs through a four-partner structure, not a single office. Münchner Sportjugend’s own description names the four Kooperationspartner as the Sozialreferat’s Stelle für interkulturelle Arbeit, the Referat für Bildung und Sport’s Sportamt, the Münchner Sportjugend (MSJ) itself, and BLSV’s own Integration durch Sport program. Together they run “Interkulturelle Vereinsentwicklung” (IVE), a structured, roughly two-year consulting process that helps individual Munich clubs actively open up to migrant communities rather than just passively accept members who happen to show up. The same MSJ page notes that already 50 percent of Munich’s children and youth under 18 have a migration background, and that Munich’s clubs meet people from more than 180 nations, context for why this isn’t a marginal add-on program.

A related Bavaria-wide project, “Sport schafft Heimat”, shows the program’s actual reach in numbers. According to BLSV’s own 10-year anniversary article, published in June 2026, the project launched in 2016 by the Bavarian Interior Ministry together with BLSV has supported up to 120 clubs a year in building low-barrier offers, training volunteers, and developing lasting structures. Between 2022 and 2025, it reached an average of around 4,600 athletes with a refugee background annually. Separately, Munich has run a long-standing “Übungsleiterin interkulturell” training track, open to women and girls aged 16 and up with a migration background who want to become qualified group leaders themselves. As of a 2015 update on the program reported by DOSB, more than 300 women had been trained across 25 cohorts statewide by that point, and about 85 percent of participants had a migration background themselves, most going on to actually lead sports groups in their clubs afterward.

What Real People Say

There isn’t a large public forum thread specifically about IdS, families tend to find the program indirectly, through a club, a school, or a community group, rather than searching for it by name. But the surrounding pattern is well documented. Handbook Germany’s Turkish-language guide to joining sports clubs reflects exactly what community-facing advice for migrant families actually looks like in practice: search your city’s own site, Google your neighborhood plus the sport plus “Verein”, and lean on a community forum or Facebook group for a personal pointer to a nearby club, because there’s no single, universal signup process across Munich’s hundreds of independent Vereine.

The migrant-club question comes up constantly in community discussion, and DOSB’s own reporting captures both sides honestly rather than picking one. DOSB’s “Migrantensportvereine, Pro & Kontra” piece profiles clubs like Munich’s own Türkgücü, founded in 1972 by Turkish guest workers originally just to have somewhere to play, not for integration’s sake, alongside newer clubs like FC Maroc, founded in 2009 by friends who met at university. The pattern that shows up again and again: for newcomers with limited German, or for some Muslim women and girls, a migrant-founded club is often the only realistic first entry point into organized sport, a bridge, not a dead end, since many members later move into mainstream leagues and mixed rosters. Critics raise a fair concern about self-segregation, but DOSB’s own institutional position is clear: a democratically-run club organized around a shared background is a legitimate form of participation, not evidence of unwillingness to integrate.

Step by Step

1. Search MSJ’s Sportangebote-Datenbank first, at msj.de/sportangebote, filter by sport, your child’s age, weekday, and a radius around your district, it’s free and covers thousands of youth offers across Munich.
2. If you’re not sure where to start, contact BLSV’s Integration durch Sport team directly, email integration@blsv.de or call 089 15702-474, describe your child’s age, sport interest, and district, and ask which current Stützpunktvereine near you welcome newcomers.
3. Ask any club directly about a Probetraining, a trial session, regardless of your German level, this is standard practice at Munich clubs and the fastest way to actually gauge fit before committing to membership.
4. If cost is the real barrier, apply for the Bildungspaket at your Jobcenter, households receiving Bürgergeld, Kinderzuschlag, or Wohngeld can get 15 euros a month toward the membership fee, and separately ask your target club whether they’ve applied for funds like Ankommen im Sport that can cover a full free membership for refugee children.
5. If you’re a woman or girl 16 or older with a migration background and want to lead, not just join, ask MSJ or BLSV’s IdS team about the “Übungsleiterin interkulturell” training track, it’s specifically built to turn newcomers into qualified group leaders.

Compliance Note

This page describes Germany’s federal “Integration durch Sport” program and its Munich-specific structure, current as of mid-2026. Program contacts, funding availability, and which clubs currently hold Stützpunktverein status can change, so confirm current details directly with BLSV’s Integration durch Sport team or the Münchner Sportjugend before acting on anything here.