Abstract

Currently there is little research that examines the profile of youth football sports coaches and for this reason we have conducted a descriptive and inferential study. We drew up a questionnaire which was given to a group of 20 football sports coaches working at the introduction to sports stage in the academies of First Division clubs. The main objective was to analyse whether the level of training of the coaches influenced the way they performed their work. The findings show that university-trained sports coaches attach more importance to the educational purpose of the education and training, include more content related to Physical Education and give more prominence to inclusive methodologies than those coaches who have only studied sports education. In conclusion, the presence of graduates in the field of physical activity and sport who work as football sports coaches needs to be increased in order to implement proper training for young athletes at the introduction to sports stage. This is because they have received much more extensive training in aspects of teaching and hence are able to implement a teaching and learning process for the sport that is much more suited to the introduction to sports stage.