Factors that affect the performance of athletes of a football club in Nelson Mandela Bay

Abstract

Universally, athletes are aware of the environmental, physical, and nutritional factors that affect their performance, with limited literature indicating that athletes are aware of the importance of motivation and the leadership style of the coach, and how these factors affect their performance. The study aimed to investigate whether these factors does affect the athletes’ performance. It explored how these components affect the performance of athletes of a football club in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa. Thus, an interpretive paradigm, exploratory design, and three in-depth semi-structured interviews were utilised to conduct research. Enabling the researcher to accumulate an understanding from the athletes’ perspectives to determine whether these factors impact their performance and understand how it affects the athletes’ performance. While thematic content analysis allowed the researcher to analyse and interpret the findings to address the research problem, questions, and objectives. The findings indicated that motivation and the coach’s leadership style does affect the performance of athletes. Motivation, either intrinsically or extrinsically, does affect performance, enabling the athletes to work hard on the pitch. While the transformational coach support, motivate, and develop strategies to help individual players and the team succeed, leading to a trustworthy relationship between coach and athletes.