Coach Education in Football : Contemporary Issues and Global Perspectives

Association Football is undoubtedly a global sport, with millions of individuals participating in more than 200 countries. The need for an educated football coaching workforce to deliver appropriate coaching practices has never been greater. Formal coach education, which is often the primary medium for developing football coaches, is socially constructed, meaning an array of social, cultural, and historical factors underpin the design and delivery of any provision. Coach Education in Football: Contemporary Issues and Global Perspectives is the first book to explicitly explore these aspects, by providing critical insight into football coach education programmes from across the globe.

Each chapter, organised via a central theme, highlights a contemporary issue affecting football coach education and development within a specific country, offering insights into the contextual opportunities and challenges. The book covers essential topics including the progression of female football coaches, coaches’ perspectives towards current provision, technological and pedagogical advances, and the historical development of formal coach education. Each chapter demonstrates the complexities associated with developing football coaches within grassroots and high-performance domains, while providing recommendations for national governing bodies, policy makers, and coach developers. This book is the first of its kind to explicitly investigate football coach education globally.

This accessible book is an important read for students, academics, and practitioners with an interest in sports coaching, coach education, and football.

Thomas M. Leeder is a Lecturer in Sports Coaching & Pedagogy within the School of Sport, Rehabilitation and Exercise Sciences at the University of Essex, UK. Thomas primarily teaches and researches across the overlapping areas of coach education and development, coach learning, sport pedagogy, and the sociology of sports coaching. Thomas also has experience of working as both a coach and coach developer across performance and development domains