Player-Care & Wellbeing in Football
Over the last six weeks, I have been participating in one of the first-ever courses to be carried out in the specific area of Player Care in Football. This course was facilitated by Hugo Scheckter and Toby French under the umbrella of their companies The Player Care group and Careers in Football respectively. Player-Care is a rapidly growing area within football and sport. It relates effectively to everything that happens off the pitch in relation to a player’s wellbeing. Sports such as AFL (Aussie Rules) and NRL (Rugby League) in Australia and the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB in the US are well established in this field and bringing best practises in how to ensure that players are in the best position to play their best when they enter the field.
Within Football, there are two different paths, first-team player care which relates to looking after the first team squads of football clubs, and then Academy Player-Care which looks after the academy teams. Player-Care would be considered to be a number of years behind their counterparts in Australia and the US, however, some clubs such as Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Southampton, and West Ham to name a few, have excellent structures in place in relation to first-team player care. While the majority of the Tier 1 academies that include all the clubs above and also clubs such as Sunderland, Crystal Palace, Derby, Stoke, and Leicester again to name a few have an excellent player care structure in place also. First Team clubs are coming to the realisation of the importance of player care and the impact it has on bettering performance, and are building strategies through benchmarking against other sports such as the American ones who have put a lot of capital and resources into theirs. As time goes on and through the assistance of Hugo’s newly formed company “The Player Care Group” all clubs will hopefully invest in it and see its benefits. The biggest issue clubs have is, changing their strategy in how they structure their high-performance setup and spending money when often benefits are difficult to see and it is a support department rather than one that makes them money. Currently, 18 out of the current 20 Premier League Clubs have a Player-Care Department. The Academy setups in clubs are guided by the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) that stipulates that Category 1 & 2 academies must have a dedicated Player-Care Officer in either a full or part-time capacity depending on the workload. While in Category 3 & 4 academies this role may be combined with other duties.
Research carried out as part of my MSc in Sports Management looked at leadership and cultural factors in academy and professional football within the UK. This research is split into two parts and available on my medium page and the Backroom Sports Management solutions website. From this research, I found a considerable gap to work on that looked at academy settings specifically. So, in this Player-Care course, I chose to specialise in Academy Player-Care. In the final week, we were given a scenario to work through and a question to answer, I will discuss mine below.
“An U18s player has asked to speak to you privately and has disclosed that he is suffering from low mood. The player is uncertain as to the reasons why. How would you deal with the situation and what would you do to support the player?”
I broke dealing with the situation into 3 stages, the first being the initial stage. In this stage, we want to establish why the player is suffering from a low mood, through a focused discussion. This includes how he/she is performing with football, are they playing well, struggling with fitness, or injuries. Next, we want to look at Home/Digs life, is the player staying with their own family or a host family, how is this going, are they finding it difficult to settle in or with aspects of that setting. We next want to look at education, are they enrolled in a college course, how are they finding it, are there exams or assignments that are maybe playing on their mind. Relationships with coaches, players, other staff, or external potential could be the reason. Are they getting on okay with these people, maybe a manager has said something or they feel aggrieved with a coach, player, or staff member? Currently, the COVID pandemic is ruling our lives, in a football setting players can’t do certain things, there is a stricter structure to their whole day, no social life, etc. This is a hard time for players and could be contributing to low mood. On the back of COVID and some clubs only bringing academy teams back, even though many clubs have promised in the lower age groups that player de-selection won’t be happening this season, this is not the case for 18’s and 23’s players, with de-selection time coming up around now, with the end of the season close. It can be a nervous and very hard time for players that’s contracts are up for renewal or finding out whether they will get a professional contract. It is important that we, therefore, try to establish what is causing the low mood through working through the above possibilities and the player establishing it for themselves so that a solution can be found and worked on. Reassurance is a massive element in providing the player with clarity and support that it can be solved. Four big words used often in academy settings are Pressure, Intimidation, Confidence, and Trust, these we will come back to later.
The evaluation stage is next, in this stage we wish to get a better understanding of the player and how they are functioning and getting on in the club. The first thing we want to recognise is the importance of a club-wide strategy in solving issues, be it low mood/morale or confidence. The whole club needs to weigh in behind building a process to counter it and fix it, and not just the player care team. Speaking to coaches about player’s progress on the field. It is important that this is a general conversation and not player specific, the player has come to the player care team in confidence, and therefore the need to tell a coach is not necessary. Coaches often hold such things against players and it creates difficulties. Speaking to the education officer is also important to build a picture of how the player is getting on with their education. While the Player-Care officer observing a particular player more closely in a period, allows them to build their own perception and not completely go off the opinions of others and what the player has said. This is also giving the player care officer an opportunity to check in with the player off the cuff and see how they are getting on. It is important as a club, that all players are not treated the same, there is no one way fits all approach to dealing with such issues, and each player deals with these things differently. Therefore, it is important to build an individual player evidence-based approach to solving the issue.
The final stage is Review, this is about meeting back up with the player and looking at different areas. So, we would wish to organise a 1 to 1 with the player after a 2–3-week period to discuss how that “X” period has gone, presenting what you think and have found as the player care officer and asking for feedback. It is important that it is a player problem-solving approach for their development and not the player care officer doing all the talking. The discussion of other issues and thoughts in that period is important to see if anything else is playing on their mind. While perhaps a general discussion on life, football, or sport is what they need and may cheer them up. Often, they may not have that outlet outside the club to talk about those things. Assuring the player that an open-door approach exists at the club is essential, and seen as the player came to the player care officer in the first place that is a positive. A plan is put in place to catch up every few months for a few minutes to discuss any issues if necessary is important. To have it there assures the player the club is there for them and trying their best to assist, if it is not needed then so be it. The removal of fear of bottling up or anxiety is important by the club, to ensure players have a forum to speak in private and confidence.
The final part of the addressing the scenario discusses Club Strategies and Needs. All club officials play a big role in player care; however, the best coaches recognise that they are the most influential, through the high-level contact and time they spend with the players on the pitch. Therefore, it is important that they convey the appropriate messages to players. Looking at adopting a 360-degree coaching approach where the coach is involved in the well-being of players both on and off the pitch. However, as mentioned by Pain & Harwood (2007) coaches feel they have little awareness or understanding of sports psychology and often can’t see the benefits and so more than not stay out of it. This doesn’t say that coaches can act in the role or replace the need for a sports psychologist in a football club, because that role is very important in the wellbeing and development of a player. However, the coach can have a positive input also. Club culture and the whole club being behind player wellbeing and not just support staff such as player care and education is important for building an elite performance structure that benefits the whole club, its mission, vision, goals, and its performance on the pitch. Academies adopting an approach where all Academy staff regularly meet, player welfare being the main agenda item, and formal reports kept and made accessible to all staff so that they can assist players in the best way brings efficiency and strategic progress. As a club and an industry, the removal of the stigma and examples where coaches hold players' issues against them in team selection needs to be addressed. I have heard a number of accounts from players of how coaches use varying levels of intimidation to scare and alienate players. The need for the right measures to be taken in this regard is important more than ever at a time when the football industry is growing and growing and often becoming out of control in some areas in dealing with mental health and the advocacy that is around it today.
Brown & Potrac (2009) discussed how lower academy clubs had a climate of fear and a culture of intimidation, young players were seen to be badly supported. In comparison to elite academies where they were constantly engaging in teaching mental skills and techniques on and off the pitch. So, therefore, we have many clubs that are doing good in how they deal with player wellbeing and many clubs that are doing very badly. As an industry, it has now become more important than ever that an approach and strategy is devised that is football-wide in dealing with player wellbeing and every club is held responsible for it.
From an Irish perspective, the Gaelic Players Association(GPA) under the guidance of Ian Reeves in the role of Player Development Manager is doing excellent work in wellbeing and education. Rugby Players Ireland is looking after rugby players in Ireland, with the development roles broken down into the different formats and teams in Ireland. Dr Vincent O’Flaherty who was with them up until last year in a development role, authored a PhD thesis looking at youth Irish players transition to UK football academies (Reference below). Football is looked after by the PFAI, while the other Non-Government Bodies(NGB’s) for sport have structures in place to deal with wellbeing within their particular sport.
References
BROWN, G. & POTRAC, P. 2009. You’ve not made the grade son’: de-selection and identity disruption in elite-level youth football. Soccer and Society, 143–159.
PAIN, M. & HARWOOD, C. 2007. The performance environment of the England youth soccer teams. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25, 107–126.
Other particular journals, books, and articles of note in relation to Player care and Wellbeing are:
Calvin M. No Hunger in Paradise The Players: The Journey, The Dream. London: Arrow Books, 2017.
Hughes D. The Barcelona Way, How to Create a High-Performance Culture. 2018
Jones, Susan. (2018). How well are the Elite Players Performance Plan (EPPP) supporting young players with psychological welfare?. Journal of Psychology & Clinical Psychiatry. 9. 10.15406/jpcpy.2018.09.00541.
KELLY, S. & WADDINGTON, I. 2006. Abuse, Intimidation, and Violence as Aspects of Managerial Control In Professional Soccer in Britain and Ireland. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 41.
Nesti M and Sulley C. Youth Development in Football: Lessons from the world’s best academies. London: Routledge, 2015.
O’Flaherty V. The Career decision-making process of Irish underage international footballers. Dublin City University, 2019.
O’Halloran L. The lived experience of ‘critical moments’ in Premier league Academy Football: A descriptive psychological phenomenological exploration. Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, 2019.
Pankow K, Mosewich AD and Holt NL. The Development of Leadership in Model Youth Football Coaches. The Sport Psychologist 2018; 32.
Richardson D, Gilbourne D and Littlewood M. Developing support mechanisms for elite young players in a professional soccer academy. European Sport Management Quarterly 2004; 4: 195–214.
Taylor D. ’13 years down the drain. Just like that’ The Premier leagues forgotten kids, (2020, accessed 12th of April 2020).
