International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health 2020; 7(1): 71-74 P-ISSN: 2394-1685 E-ISSN: 2394-1693 Impact Factor (ISRA): 5.38 IJPESH 2020; 7(1): 71-74 www.kheljournal.com Received: 04-11-2019 Accepted: 08-12-2019 Uwambaza Jean Marie Vianney PhD student of Shanghai University of Sport PE and Sports coaching Department Qing Yuan Huan Rd., Shanghai 200438 http://cice.sus.edu.cn// Yang Pu District, Shanghai, China. Challenges faced by beginners’ football coaches in Shanghai city, China. Uwambaza Jean Marie Vianney Abstract In china, Football was not a major part of Chinese sport culture but today, as the popularity of football is growing in China, youth are actively involving in football. Hence, then need for additional for coaches after qualified football. Although challenges they face, Beginners coaches continue to be engaged in coaching. Therefore, this study was needed to analyze the problems encountered by football beginners’ coaches in Shanghai City of China. A quantitative approach was adopted for this study. Ninth six including 77 males and 19 females’ footballs coaches completed a 34-item questionnaire on the perceived hindrances to coaching. The average of age is 30 years old. The results of this study showed that Coaching conflicts with family commitments, Low salary, Lack of opportunities for promotion coaching, interferes with social life; Difficulties with parents/spectators are major barriers to their coaching. Based on these findings, the study recommends that the Government in collaboration with Chinese Football Association (CFA)and Shanghai Football Association (SFA), the local Association, should fix adequate strategies to solve these problems that are encountered by beginners ‘coaches. Keywords: Challenges, beginner’s coaches, football, Shanghai Corresponding Author: Uwambaza Jean Marie Vianney PhD student of Shanghai University of Sport PE and Sports coaching Department Qing Yuan Huan Rd., Shanghai 200438 http://cice.sus.edu.cn// Yang Pu District, Shanghai, China. 1. Introduction Coaches are the backbone of any sport system. They assist athletes in developing to their full potential. They are the center of athlete performance and sport development by analyzing their performances, instructing in relevant skills and by providing encouragement. The quality of the athlete cannot be higher than the quality of its coaches. Moreover, sport coaches are also required to develop confidence, competence, social skills and values among young people (SASCOC, 2011). Despite the pivotal role that coaches play in sport, Everhart and Chelladurai (1998) [4] in Barriers Model of Occupational Choice revealed that coaches may face many challenges to their entry into an occupation or subsequent satisfaction of their needs. The barriers include burnout, job insecurity, pressure to win, homophobia, lack of administrative support, inadequate resources, lack of financial incentive, too much stress and lack of social support (Everhart & Chelladurai, 1998 [3-4]; Demers, 2004; Kerr & Marshall, 2007; Kamphoff, 2010). Another set of barriers include time constraints, discrimination, unfavorable working hours, conflict with family commitments, low salary and time spent travelling to competitions (Everhart & Chelladurai, 1998 [4]; Kamphoff, 2010). These perceived barriers, both internally and externally imposed, are thought to impede the career-related behavior of both men and women (Everhart, 1994) [3]. In china, Football was not a major part of Chinese sport culture but today, the popularity of football is growing rapidly. Millions of youth are today actively involving in football, are young players from recreational and competitive level in the age from 5-16 years old. They learn football at their schools during PE and after class, and join football centers in the week end. (http://www.thecfa) The Chinese government would already appear to appreciate this, having set a series of target ranging from the number that the country wants to be playing football (50 million by 2020), through the number of the pitches available to play football on (70,000 by 2020) reported (South China Morning Post, 2016: China sets out grand plan to become world’s soccer superpower by 2050). With such big dreams, the coherence of the china’s plan, it’s ongoing Investment in the grassroots. Many coaches are involved in delivering sessions to beginners or developing football players, a challenge of China, most of them they are beginners and volunteers’ coaches, PE teachers and students from sports universities. They are selected to be coaches by the Managers of Youth football centers and the Headmasters of the schools with football program development all over the country especially in big city as well as Shanghai. These young coaches are selected and engaged, based on they are not qualified coaches but, on their availability, players experiences, passion of football, willingness to assume the coaching position and general misunderstanding opinion on coach that “anyone can coach”. This far from the truth. A major problem in contemporary youth football beginners’ coaches is that with that player’s experiences, they have a competence of skills demonstration but they have not the competences of youth coaching’s strategies. ~ 71 ~ International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health http://www.kheljournal.com Youth football coaches must be competent and knowledgeable about child development, motor development, biomechanics, sport psychology, coaching techniques, first aid, and legal risk management (Côté & Fraser-Thomas, 2007) [2]. In relation to sports, the role of the coach is to create the right conditions for learning to happen and to find ways of motivating the athletes. Most athletes are highly motivated and the task is to maintain that motivation and to generate excitement and enthusiasm. Therefore, you can see that it is a very difficult task and requires a very special person. It is imperative that the Government in collaboration with Chinese Football Association (CFA) looks after best interests of the young participants. It is actually putting efforts to educate many coaches to ensure that beginner’s coaches are knowledgeable and capable when it comes to dealing with children. Apart from limit knowledge, skills, access and sufficiency coaching education program for these beginners’ coaches, to address and improve upon their coaching weaknesses, beginners football coaches are at risk of power performance and dropout from challenges faced. A very important element of quality of coaches is coaching education reviewed literature reveals that coaches who in sports particularly football are faced by many challenges (Kubaye, 2015; kamphoff, 2010). these challenges include low salary, conflicts with social life……, some scholars such as Henderson et al., (1999), have also argue that beginners’ coaches lack the support or role model. These and other factors were incorporated in this study. Kubaye, Coopo & H Mirris (2016) concluded that there are challenges for new comers in coaching career. A major problem in contemporary youth football beginner’s coaches is that they are facing many barriers. With their player’s experiences, they have a competence of skills demonstration but social problems remain issue for their coaching development. (Surujlal & Nguyen, 2011) [10], reported that yet these coaches experience high turnover, with an increasing number of coaches being dismissed by clubs who are impatient for success. Although a substantial body of research exists on hindrances encountered by coaches in other countries, very little attention has been directed towards understanding the challenges faced by football coaches in Shanghai City of China. Therefore, the present study attempts to fill this knowledge gap by examining the barriers encountered by sport coaches in Shanghai. It also fills the major gap in the English literature regarding Chines coaches. A better understanding of these impediments experienced by coaches could generally provide the sport organizations with information needed to design strategies to retain and develop football coaches. There are three primary groups that may benefit from this study. The first group, consisting of coaches, may learn to identify the barriers that face their new comers in coaching career and the problem their work performance may enable them to take necessary action to overcome these barriers. The second group is the China football Association (CFA). By sharing this knowledge, FA can act as a facilitator to help remove some barriers. The last group that may benefit from this study is Managers of the Clubs, academies, football centers, who may gain insight as to which barriers actually facing their future employees. both part time and full-time job. This study is restricted to beginner’s coaches operating in the Shanghai City area. The Shanghai City is big city with 27, 059, 479 people (httpt://worldpopulationreview.com/), it has now a big number of football schools both professional and amateur which needing more qualified coaches. The purpose of this study, was to identify the barriers which affect and influence the beginner’s coaches to drop out and end cape their development at their workplace. 2. Materials and Methods of the study 2.1 Participants The respondents involved in this survey are coaches working in none-professional clubs, football academies and football centers or schools located in Shanghai City. The number of respondents is 96 in total. Among them (n = 77 men and 19 women). On average, the participants had six years of coaching experience. The purposive sampling method was chosen because it is deliberate, flexible and seeks a diverse range of participants who can provide a variety of experiences on the study topic (Hennink, Hutter & Bailey, 2011) [5]. 2.2 Research instrument The Perceived Hindrance Scale (PHS) developed by Kamphoff and Gill (2008) [9] was used to collect data. The questionnaire consisted of 34 items which were scored on a 9-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all a hindrance) to 9 (completely a hindrance). Cronbach alpha coefficients were calculated for the entire questionnaire ( = 0.952) and the subscales ( = 0.893, “minority/gender bias”; = 0.872, “gender issues”; = 0.821, “nature of coaching”; = 0.857, “conflicts with others”; = 0.763, “professional issues”). All the alpha values exceeded the benchmark level of 0.7 recommended by Nunnally and Bernstein (1994) [7], indicating that the instrument was reliable. 2.3 Data collection procedure Prior to data collection, permission to conduct the study was granted by. Ethical clearance Shanghai University of Sport’s Higher Degree Ethics Committee. Signed informed consent was obtained from all coaches before data collection. The principal researcher explained the purpose of the study to participants and were ensured that their participation was voluntary, confidential, and anonymous, and no names were requested. The participants completed and returned the questionnaires to the researchers. 2.4 Data analysis Data were captured and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24. Descriptive statistics such as means, standard deviations and percentages were used to analyze the data. 3. Results Table 1 presents means and standard deviations of the gender bias among football coaches. The major barriers encountered by coaches were: “Male coaches do not accept female coaches” (M = 3.69; SD = 2.67); “Affirmative action has created extra hassles” (M = 3.64; SD = 2.60); “Men hiring only men” (M = 3.62; SD = 2.89); “Women coaches are treated unfairly” (M = 3.41; SD = 2.65). Table 1 presents means and standard deviations Gender bias 1.1 Scope of the study This study is limited to the perceptions of beginner’s coaches ~ 72 ~ International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health http://www.kheljournal.com Table 1: Gender bias and issues among football coaches Minority/Gender Bias Women coaches are treated Men hiring only men Affirmative action has created extra hassles Male coaches do not accept female coaches Lack of role models for racial/ethnic Lack of support for racial/ethnic Female players prefer male coaches Racial/ethnic minority discrimination Racial/ethnic minority coaches unfair M 3.4105 3.6211 3.6421 3.6915 3.1368 2.9583 3.5957 2.7604 2.3846 Table 4 presents means and standard deviations of Conflicts with others SD 2.65977 2.89967 2.60897 2.67214 2.46512 2.55020 2.71325 2.42246 2.16933 Table 4: Conflits with Others Conflicts with Others conflicts with family commitments Difficulties with parents/spectators Coaching means working evenings and weekend Coaching interferes with social life Hassles with the media Time spent travelling to competitions Table 5: Professional Issues Professional Issues Difficult to obtain an entry coaching position Difficult to obtain an entry coaching position Low salary Lack of job Other professions are more attractive Table 2: Gender issues among football coaches SD 2.9027 2.7234 2.97841 2.89967 2.67300 2.56101 2.65977 2.65560 M 4.0638 3.6875 3.9479 3.6146 4.0632 3.6277 3.4105 3.4792 SD 2.71570 2.71570 2.79930 2.66703 2.75864 4. Discussion The purpose of this study was to examining the challenges faced by football coaches in the Shanghai City in China. Most of the coaches revealed that coaching conflicts with family commitments, low salary, lack of opportunities and coaching interferes with social life are the main challenges. The results of this study reported that there is a dire need for support coaches overcome conflicts related to their job. Another important obstacle that emerged from this study is low salary. However, it should be clarified that salaries vary significantly depending on the type of sport coached, the level coached and the position of the coach – whether as head coach or assistant coach (Wuest & Fisette, 2012) [1]. A plausible reason why coaches cited low salary as a major constraint in this study could be based on the fact that the majority of the sport coaches were coaching at an amateur level. It could be speculated that coaches who are coaching at amateur level are poorly paid compared to high-performance coaches. Lack of opportunities for promotion was identified as another important hindrance encountered by coaches. This finding could be attributed to the fact that most of the football clubs in Shanghai prefer to hire foreigners’ coaches or former professional football players in top- level coaching positions. As a result, coaches who are beginners and did not play professional football are denied opportunities to be promoted to coach at elite level irrespective of their experience and qualifications (Surujlal, 2004) [8]. What is not known though is Table 3: Nature of coaching SD 2.83677 2.83021 2.96897 2.76664 2.60665 2.83029 2.57823 M 3.8125 3.8125 4.8105 4.4479 4.2708 The major challenges experienced by football coaches were “Coaching conflicts with family commitments” (M = 4.88; SD = 2.62); “Low salary” (M = 4.81; SD = 2.71); “Lack of opportunities for promotion” (M = 4.73; SD = 2.83); “Coaching interferes with social life ” (M = 4.66; SD = 2.79); “difficulties with parents/spectators” (M = 4.61; SD = 2.89); “Public scrutiny of life” (M = 4.60; SD = 2.83) Table 3 presents means and standard deviations of nature of coaching. The major barriers encountered by coaches were: “Lack of opportunities for promotion” (M = 4.73; SD = 2.83); “Public scrutiny of life” (M = 4.60; SD = 2.83); “Unfavorable working hours” (M = 4.427; SD = 2.57); “Having to a lot of training”; M=4.425; SD= 2.83); “Pressure to win “; M= 4.40; SD= 2.76); “Difficulties with alumni” (M=4.38; SD=2.83) Table 3 presents means and standard deviations of nature of coaching Nature of Coaching Lack of opportunities for promotion Public scrutiny of life Difficulties with alumni Pressure to win Coaching takes too much time Having to do a lot of training Unfavorable working hours SD 2.62326 2.89235 2.60734 2.79289 2.79806 2.62023 Table 5 presents means and standard deviations of Professional Issues. The major barriers encountered by coaches were: “Low salary” (M = 4.81; SD = 2.71); “Lack of job security” (M = 4.44; SD = 2.66); “Others professional are more attractive” (M=4.27; SD=2.75); “Difficulties to obtain an entry coaching position “; M= 3.81; SD= 2.71); Table 5 presents means and standard deviations of professional Issues Table 2 presents means and standard deviations of the gender Issues among football coaches. The major barriers encountered by coaches were: “Lack of support systems for women players” (M = 4.0638; SD = 2.90); “Lack of role models among women coaches” (M = 4.0632; SD = 2.67); “Lack of training programmers for women coaches” (M = 3.94; SD = 2.97); “Lack of support for women coaches’ superiors” (M = 3.68; SD = 2.72 Table 2 presents means and standard deviations of Gender Issues among football Coaches Gender Issues Lack of support systems for women players Lack of support for women Lack of training programmers for women Women coaches are discriminated against Lack of role models Perception of homosexuality among women Perception of women coaches as unfeminine Women coaches are perceived to be un attraction M 4.8854 4.6146 4.5417 4.6632 4.2526 4.2421 M 4.7396 4.6042 4.3895 4.4063 4.2396 4.4255 4.4271 Table 4 presents means and standard deviations of Conflicts with others. The major barriers encountered by coaches were: “Coaching conflicts with family commitments” (M = 4.88; SD = 2.62); “Lack of opportunities for promotion” (M = 4.73; SD = 2.83) “Coaching interferes with social life ” (M = 4.66; SD = 2.79); “difficulties with parents/spectators” (M = 4.61; SD = 2.89); “Coaching means working evening and weekends ”; M=4.54; SD= 2.60); “Hassles with the media “; M= 4.25; SD= 2.79); “Time spent travelling to competitions ” (M=4.24; SD=2.62) ~ 73 ~ International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health http://www.kheljournal.com whether these former professionals can transfer their playing experience into coaching practice. This finding contradicts those of a mixed-method study conducted by Kubaye, (2016) who discovered that coaching does not conflict with family commitments Kamphoff (2010), who found that one of the interviewees reported that coaching was time consuming and described it as “nonstop activity.” 8. Reference 1. A Fisette J. Foundation of Physical Education, Exercise Science and Sport (17th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. 2. Coté J, Fraser-Thomas J. Youth involvement in sport. In P. R. E. Crocker (Ed.), Introduction to sport psychology: A Canadian perspective. Toronto: Pearson, 2007, 270-298. 3. Everhart CB. Gender differences in the choice of coaching as an occupation: The role of self-efficacy, valence, and perceived barriers. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Ohio: The Ohio State University, 1994. 4. Everhart CB, Chelladurai P. Gender differences in preferences for coaching as an occupation: The role of self-efficacy, valence, and perceived barriers. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport. 1998; 69(2):188-200. 5. Hennink M, Hutter I, Bailey A. Qualitative Research Methods. London: Sage Publications, 2011. 6. International Council for Coaching Excellence and the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations International Sport Coaching Framework. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2012. 7. Nunnally JC, Bernstein IH. Psychometric Theory (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw- Hill, 1994. 8. Surujlal J. Human resources management of professional sports coaches. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Johannesburg: Rand Afrikaans University, 2004. 9. Kamphoff C, Gill D. Collegiate athletes’ perceptions of the coaching profession. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching. 2008; 3(1):55-72. 10. Kubaye, Y Coopoo & H Morris. Coaches’Preferences for continuing coach Education in South Africa. Journal of human Kinetics(1), 229-234 11. Surujlal J, Nguyen S. Coping under pressure: Strategies for maintaining confidence amongst South African soccer coaches. Health SA Gesondheid. 2011; 16(1):7. DOI: 10.4102/hsag.v16i1.537. 12. South African Sport Confederation and Olympic Committee. South African Coaching Framework Consultation Document, 2011. Available at: http//: www.sascoc.co.za. Accessed 15 March 2014. 13. 13 South China Morning Post, 2016 14. http://www.thecfa.cn/ 5. Summary, conclusion and recommendations 5.1 Summary of Findings The study revealed that conflict with family commitments was the greatest challenge that faced beginner’s football coaches in Shanghai City. Low salary was also noted as a challenge since they are working in non-professional with limited budget for hiring coaches. Lack of opportunities for promotion was reported as another challenge encountered by new coaches, lack of experience left them with limited consideration by club managers to be promoted. It was also noted that there interferes with social life, difficulties with parents and spectators. Beginner’s coaches were also greatly affected by Public scrutiny of life which often caused by social life. 6. Conclusions There were several challenges that faced beginner’s football coaches. Among them, conflict with family commitment was the main one. Others included; low salary, lack of opportunities of promotion, interferes with social life, difficulties with parents and spectators and public scrutiny. 7. Recommendations Based on the findings and conclusion of this study, several recommendations have been made to both national and county government, Chinese Football Association (CFA), Shanghai Football Association as follows: a. Government The government is one of the key stake holders in the sports industry. It should therefore be keen on beginners’ football coaches and give it the attention that it deserves in order to their participation in football. b. Shanghai football association and Chinese association The local Football Association and Chinese Football Association main mandate is to organize and manage football leagues for both women and men from grass roots level to the national level. It should therefore; Ensure that beginners’ coaches are recognized and supported; Consider introducing the leagues in secondary schools and colleges since most of the women football players are young and still in school. Educate and promote beginners’ coaches to ensure that they remain in good condition; Offer rewards and incentives to women who engaged in football coaching; Seek funds from sponsors and well-wishers to boost these nonprofessional clubs and schools so that they can provide good salary to beginner’s coaches. c. Suggestions for further research Based on the focus of this study and its findings, the following are the recommended as possible areas for further research: A study on beginners’ coaches’ challenges in the entire county. Comparative studies on challenges faced women engagement in football coaching career. ~ 74 ~