Mental fitness in elite sport: The role of therapy in football academies

Background Despite growing media interest into the effects of organised sport on children and young people's mental health, there remains a dearth of research in this area. The study therefore aimed to explore sport professionals' views of how football academies support the mental health and wellbeing of academy footballers. Methods A qualitative design was utilised to generate a rich dataset to gain insights into the views of sport professionals. Eleven individuals who worked at football academies were interviewed for this study. Reflexive thematic analysis was engaged with in order to identify key themes within the interviews. Findings The analysis led to the creation of three major themes related to the experience of sports professionals in football academes, with each theme consisting of four subthemes. The themes and subthemes were: (i) Understanding the uniqueness of the culture and experience . The subthemes within this theme were ‘Power and privilege’, ‘It's a game’, ‘Language’, and ‘External influences’. (ii) Developing the therapist's role . With subthemes of ‘Addressing stigma associated with therapy’, ‘Developing a goal’, ‘Communicating the goal’, and ‘Measuring the goal’. (iii) Integrating the role (finding a place for therapy) . This consisted of the following subthemes, ‘For the many or the few’, ‘Embedded or impartial’, ‘Buy in from The 3 P's’, and ‘Delivering unique bespoke therapy’. Conclusion The findings support existing literature and government initiatives with a collective agreement of aiming to improve the facility of mental health support within football academies. Reflecting upon the findings and existing literature, a unique approach to integrate therapy within academy football is proposed. This emphasises a need for therapeutic support across the whole academy system. A collective term was coined within this research as ‘ The Three Ps ’ ( the players, their support network (parents or primary care givers), and the professionals ). This requires applied psychologists to offer support in ways that do not alienate them from the football academy community. Suggestions and implications are discussed, including the provision of flexible holistic support , tailored athlete-centred therapeutic practice , and counselling acting as a platform to connect the whole academy community . Further research is required to assess bi-directional communication between counselling and psychotherapy and football academies to ensure that therapy is adaptable throughout the environment.