Actors, interactions and networks: A relational analysis of talent identification and development in elite youth football

Abstract

To date, research in talent identification and development has tended to adopt a positivistic stance and prioritised the measurement of a range of biophysical markers that characterise specific determinants of talent. Despite more recent inquiry shedding greater light on the social and emotional complexities of sports coaching more generally, and elite youth football more specifically, there is a paucity of work that explicitly seeks to explore the interactions, relations, ties and networks of a range of stakeholders involved in the enactment of talent identification and development in elite youth football. Through the use of Crossley’s (2011, 2015, 2018, 2022) relational theorising as a heuristic lens, this thesis breaks new ground by providing original, ethnographically-inspired knowledge concerning the interactions, relations, ties, and dialectics that have helped to shape the constitution and configuration of an academy network. Data were rigorously generated in a category 3 football academy with 12 different stakeholders, who each performed a different role (e.g., academy management, coach, phase lead, head of recruitment, sport scientist, video analyst, centre manager or parent). Data were generated over approximately 20 months, and involved observational notes direct from the field, cyclical semi-structured interviews and participatory mapping exercises. An iterative approach to data analysis was adopted through constant and purposeful etic and emic readings of both the data and the extant literature. Crossley’s work, together with the supporting views of other sociological theorists (notably Granovetter, Becker, and Goffman) revealed patterns of connection and non-connection to others, enabling and constraining features of (inter)action, and reference to notions of strategic interaction, cooperation, trust, exchanges, power and emotion. This had consequences on the constitution and configuration of the whole academy network. By connecting these insights to the extant literature, I demonstrate how this project has refined, extended or contributed to novel knowledge pertaining to the relational features of talent identification and development in elite youth football, and as such, encourages new ways of considering the ambiguities, realities and complexities of the everyday ‘doing’ of such work.

Date of Award	25 Apr 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Northumbria University
Supervisor	Edward Hall (Supervisor) & Paul Potrac (Supervisor)