Prevalence of emotional abuse and subsequent feelings in adolescent and young semi-professional male football players

ABSTRACT

Emotional abuse is the most common form of maltreatment in sports. However, due to the ignorance of the harmful effects and the hiding of this abuse in the shadow of success, less attention has been paid to it. In the present study, the researchers investigated the amount of emotional abuse and the subsequent feelings in young and adolescent athletes. The current research is cross-sectional with a mixed-methods approach, and 100 football players (adolescent = 59, young = 41) participated in the study. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were used to collect data, which was analyzed and interpreted by grounded theory and SPSS software. Evidence demonstrated that 48% of all participants were emotionally abused by a coach during their sports career, such as humiliation and insults. While this maltreatment has been more common among young athletes, it has left far more short and long-term destructive effects, such as self-blame and loss of pride among adolescents. Based on the findings, we conclude that many athletes are exposed to emotional abuse, which has adverse consequences, especially in adolescence. Therefore, the awareness of athletes and coaches regarding maltreatment and its harmful effects can reduce the frequency of emotional abuse and maintain the psychological safety of athletes.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotional abuse
• athlete maltreatment
• psychological safety
• self-blame
• self-confidence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).