Achievement Goal Theory & Athletic Burnout

Football academies are environments in which promising footballers are trained and developed with the goal of becoming elite senior athletes (Crust, Nesti & Littlewood, 2010). English academies operate a dual sporting goal according to Isoard-Gautheur, Guillet-Ducas & Duda (2013), in which they aim to teach and help athlete’s master skills, but also have an obligation to ensure enough athletes break through into the senior team. Academies train athletes from the ages of 10 to 18 on a part time format, using elite coaches and elite competition between other academies to enhance their player’s ability (Crust, Nesti & Littlewood, 2010). Academies are very much utilised as a progressive filter, which begins with a large number of athletes at the youngest age, with progressively smaller numbers of athletes in each age group as age increases (Crust, Nesti & Littlewood, 2010). Whether an athlete is retained for the next year is subject to player evaluation by coaches and directors within the academy, thus requiring athletes to demonstrate competency as well as achieving success (Isoard-Gautheur, Guillet-Ducas & Duda, 2012; Crust, Nesti & Littlewood, 2010).

Due to the stressful and high pressure nature of this achievement context in academies, the question of how to ensure athletes realize their sporting potential without experiencing athletic burnout has become increasingly important (Isoard-Gautheur, Guillet-Ducas & Duda, 2012). Research into this process has highlighted various factors such as perfectionism (Lemyre, Hall & Roberts, 2008; Gould, Tuffey, Udry & Loehr, 1997) and stress-coping techniques (Coakley, 1992) as being important in athletic burnout, but has also shown certain motivational factors ( ) to play an influential ...

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