Dansk fodbold sætter tal på den gode træneradfærd

© Søren Bennike¹, Claes Madsen¹, Peter Elsborg² & Glen Nielsen^3
1Danish Football Association; ²Center for Clinical Research and Prevention, Frederiksberg Hospital;³Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen

Danish football puts numbers on good coaching behavior

The purpose of this Danish language article is to present how Danish football puts numbers on good coaching behavior in children’s and youth football (6-19 years) and at the same time convey the current status. The method is based on a larger research study, which shows that an empowering coaching behavior – a coaching behavior that focusses on the task and on development (supporting competence) and that supports the experience of cohesion and autonomy – contributes to creating continuity. Whereas a dis-empowering coach’s behavior – a coach’s behavior that is one-sidedly results-focused and controlling/authoritarian – creates drop-out behavior. A total of 12,525 children and youth players (ages 6-19) answered the questionnaire, including 9,964 boys and 2,561 girls. The results show that the Danish child and youth coaches exhibit a relatively high degree of motivating coaching behaviour. At the same time, it is worth noting the differences between age groups, where the tendency is that the amount of motivating coaching behavior is smaller, the older the players are. This applies especially to the girls, where the oldest girls rate the motivational coaching behavior the lowest. If you look at the degree of demotivating behavior, the results show that the experience of demotivating coaching behavior increases with the age of the players, and is most prevalent in the oldest age groups. This climb is steepest for girls.

Download the Bennike et al. article in Danish.

SØREN BENNIKE holds a position as Head of Research at the Danish Football Association. He leads on the area of applied football science in collaboration with several domestic and international academic institutions. He received his PhD in 2016 in Humanities and Social Sport Sciences at the University of Copenhagen.

CLAES MADSEN holds a position as Insights Manager at the Danish Football Association. He is leading several insights projects, among others, regarding motivation and how players, coaches and management in grassroots football thrive.

PETER ELSBORG is a researcher and team leader at the Center for Clinical Research and Prevention. His scientific expertise focuses on key factors influencing children’s participation in physical activities. He received his PhD in 2017 in Humanities and Social Sport Sciences at the University of Copenhagen.