Connections, conflict and (re)configuration: a relational analysis of the enactment of EPPP policy in academy football

The relational and networked nature of policy enactment work in coaching contexts has received scant attention. This study addressed how interdependencies, ties, and co-constituted interactions shaped the enactment of the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) within academy football. Utilising Crossley's relational theorising as a primary sense-making device, we demonstrate how policy was lived through the everyday relations and interactions of those involved. Using a bricolage of recursive methods within a category 3 academy, the findings highlight how patterns of trust, conflict and homophilic clustering constrained the flow of new policy ideas and reshaped existing lines of influence. Coaches’ agency materialised in collective and contingent ways rather than as an individual act. Policy enactment was positioned as a negotiated and constantly shifting process sustained by the ties, emotions and dependencies of organisational life, with practical implications into how communication systems and organisational arrangements shape coaches' interpretation of policy.