Young soccer players’ perception of the sports environment

Abstract

The relevance of the social environment of significant others, such as parents, teachers, coaches, and partners, has an impact on soccer players’ moral performance. The sports environment surrounding young soccer players is of paramount importance for their proper sports, personal, and social development. An analysis of players’ perception is necessary to evaluate it. In this study, the objective is to understand young soccer players’ perception of the youth sports environment (parents, athletes and coaches), according to sports category. The design used in the research was cross-sectional, retrospective, descriptive, and correlational. The sample was composed of 99 young soccer players, all of them male. The instrument used was the Perception of the Youth Sports Environment (CPEDJ) questionnaire of Carratalá, Gutiérrez, Guzmán and Pablos (2011). It is noted that the higher is the sports category, the worse is players’ perception about refereeing. Also, parents are seen as less respectful, and coaches less educating. A positive relationship between educating coaches and respectful parents is identified. It seems that players perceive that when coaches act more as educators, parents are more respectful. Finally, a positive relationship between good refereeing and sports facilities is observed.