Disabled people continue to face exclusion from full participation in community sports. Efforts to include disabled people in sports organisations have favoured structural solutions to make sport accessible. Our purpose was to understand which dimensions of a football club’s organisational capacity assisted the vertical integration of disability football clubs. A theoretical framework combining organisational capacity and acculturation informed an exploratory and qualitative research design using semi-structured interviews. Findings indicate that the brand and the size of the organisation assisted the generation of integrative capacity. Following the acquisition of integrative capacity, two types of integration – assimilation and accommodation appeared. This study contributes to the extant literature on the vertical integration of disability sport and the management and organisation of disability football. Recommendations for policy makers and practitioners seeking to implement the vertical integration process as this study provides a theoretical and empirical perspective on how mergers can create inclusive organisations.

Rationale: Mainstreaming is the policy of integrating the responsibility for disability sport provision into nondisabled sports organizations. While a contemporary organizational practice, we know little about how this process works. Purpose: We explore how sports organizations mobilized organizational capacity to implement mainstreaming. Method: Multiple case analyses was constructed on the experiences of three non-profit, provincial Northern Irish sporting organizations through documents and interviews. Findings: In order to mainstream disability sport financial, human, and network resources were combined and leveraged. Specifically, funds underpinned a commitment from staff, who drew upon their networks to attract and retain volunteers, educate the workforce, and develop more networks essential for programme creation. In each case however, insufficient planning limited the type and diversity of inclusive provision, and threatened sustainability. Research Contribution: This study provides new insights into how capacity is mobilized to mainstream disability sport. It highlights that appropriate policy support and planning mechanisms need to be in place before provision is enacted to ensure more inclusive provision from the outset.