The role of a coaching psychologist in the mind games of association football

While occupational psychology has penetrated the world of business and sports psychologists are widely used by professional sports people, the impact of psychology-based performance coaching on football management appears to remain unappreciated and undervalued. In this commentary on Simon Jenkins’ article, I argue that business coaches in general and coaching psychologists in particular have a lot to offer football managers.Jenkins argues that leading coaching writers such as Marshall Goldsmith provides us with techniques such as feed forward which can easily be transferred from the boardroom to the changing room. He also argues that the high-pressure world of the football manager is little different from the pressurized world of leadership in commercial organizations in the FTSE 100. I will argue that coaching psychologists might be able to offer football managers insights, competencies and competitive advantages which their colleagues from the commercial world have been drawing on for over two decades.

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