Abstract

Having observed that the media often feature news items in the sports section concerning conflicts in sports clubs between parents, coaches, players and club officials, we decided to investigate the issue more closely and examine coaches’ perceptions of the conflicts of the adolescent boys and girls who they train. One of the findings is that coaches do not think that there are many conflicts in their clubs, although by contrast they believe there are such conflicts in other teams. Also significant is that while coaches are always complaining about parents, they perceive conflicts in their players’ relationships. Finally, the clubs studied do not have a conflict resolution system in place but instead use an arbitration system drawn from supposed internal regulations.