Davide joined Leeds Beckett University as a Leverhulme Visiting Fellow in January 2013 from the University of Padua, Italy, where he completed a PhD in sociology with an ethnographic study on football and inter-ethnic relationships in post-war Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Davide is a board member of the European Association for the Sociology of Sport (EASS), whose Young Researcher Award he initiated in 2009 and has chaired ever since. He is also a former coordinator of the Research Network 28 ‘Society and Sports’ of the European Sociological Association (ESA) and he has served in the Editorial Board of the International Review for the Sociology of Sport.
Alongside his academic work, Davide holds both a FA Level 1 and a Uefa B football coaching qualification.
Underpinned by a qualitative, interpretive sociological approach, Davide’s research mainly deals with the inclusive/exclusive dynamics in sports and the changing forms of physical cultures (notably in the fields of sport for development and peace, alternative sport events, anti-racism/multiculturalism, and lifestyle sports).
Davide is currently part of a research group which investigates the institutionalisation of Italian parkour. He was previously involved in the evaluation of the Battle Back project, funded by The Royal British Legion, to analyse the role of adaptive sports and outdoor activities in the psychosocial recovery and personal development of wounded, injured, and sick military personnel.
Davide’s previous study funded by the Leverhulme Trust examined liminality and de-sportisation as characteristics of alternative/anti-discriminatory sport events and initiatives, with particular focus on the Mondiali Antirazzisti (Antiracitst World Cup).
