Barriers and motives to participate in sports have been examined among marginalised groups in numerous pieces of literature. However, barriers and motives for sports participation among children in Muslim communities are least researched within the childhood and sports literature. The purpose of this study was to examine the primary evidence on barriers and motivators to voluntary sports participation that are faced by children in Muslim communities and to then consider how those barriers might best be addressed and how-to nature their motives in sports participation. A purposively sampled Muslim youths aged (9-15) years were selected to contribute to the discourse by the use of a questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and T-tests were used to identify the barriers and the motives and to find the differences based on gender. The results revealed that personal barriers were the most potent barrier with family barriers, cultural barriers, social barriers and psychological barriers all impact participation in sports. In terms of motives, positive attitudes and positive influences were identified as motivators for the youths. Notwithstanding, boys were found to perceive more barriers but were more motivated to participate in sports than girls. It is recommended that families and other stakeholders should assist to remove barriers to improve participation among children in Muslim societies in developing countries.

Keywords: motives, barriers, sports participation, Muslim communities, gender.