The aim of this study was to consider the retirement experiences of British male professional association footballers by utilising Foucault’s analysis of discipline discussed in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Specifically, we drew upon Foucault to consider how, through the various techniques and instruments of discipline, the professional football context produces ‘docile footballing bodies’ and how this might influence a player’s experiences in retirement. We gathered our empirical material using a Foucauldian-informed interview framework with 25 former professional male football players between the ages of 21 and 34. Our analysis suggested that retirement from football was both a challenge and a relief for our participants, and that their extended period of time within football’s strong disciplinary apparatus significantly influenced how they experienced their retirement.

Conventional wisdom dictates that the use of GPS surveillance technology in sport to assist athletic performance is an overwhelminglypositive phenomenon. Specifically, the health and performance benefits of the application of GPS and surveillance technologies have been well documented across a range of field sports. Previous research into the developmental implications of GPS surveillance in professional rugby league (Jones, Marshall, & Denison, 2016) has identified that there are some significant unintended consequencesof their use for elite athletes. We utilised the disciplinary analysis of Foucault to investigate the experiences of academy soccer playersin relation to wearable GPS technology. Five academy players took part in semi-structured group interviews as part of a wider study into the effects of surveillance technologies within an academy setting. We suggest that the now normalised and increasingly ubiqui- tous use of GPS surveillance technology within this particular British soccer academy is seen as relatively insignificant by its players. However, we also report that GPS use does act to impose discipline on academy players and may well have unforeseen and potentially problematic implications for academy players’ development experience.

One aspect of sports retirement that has been overlooked until recently is the manner in which retired athletes relate to, and seek to redefine, the meaning of exercise in their post-sport lives. In this article, three Foucauldian scholars present and analyze a series of vignettes concerning their own sense-making and meaning-making about exercise following their long-term involvement in high-performance soccer (authors one and two) and distance running (author three). In doing so, this paper aims to underline the problematic legacy of high-performance sport for retiring athletes' relationship to movement and exercise, and to highlight how social theory, and Foucauldian theorization in particular, can serve to open new spaces and possibilities for thinking about sports retirement.

As research has shown, former elite athletes often struggle to adapt to aspects of their post-sport lives. This can include the management of their identities, dealing with the uncertainty of their new roles, and negotiating the changes that occur to their bodies. In this paper we discuss an under-reported challenge facing retired athletes: how to manage their ongoing relationship with exercise. To address this issue we adopted a narrative approach, based on the first author’s experiences as a former football player, to provide a socio-cultural reading of the various challenges involved in the transition from exercise as a vocation to a leisure activity. We suggest that these stories demonstrate that in retirement, former athletes’ docility, while seemingly advantageous, can also be a significant obstacle to developing alternative meanings for exercise, including as a potential re-creative or leisure activity that can become meaningful and important in its own right.

Existing literature on the work of sports chaplains has focused primarily on practitioner accounts of chaplaincy with elite athletes. While these narratives provide useful descriptions of personal experience and practical application, they are largely devoid of theoretical grounding. This paper seeks to address this imbalance by proposing the need for sports chaplains to have a more critical understanding of sport and its relational dynamics. We begin by problematizing some of the historical assumptions underpinning elite sport, especially in relation to identity formation. We then explore some of the moral dilemmas which may be experienced by Christian athletes who inhabit contemporary sporting contexts. In line with the work of established sociological scholars, we then move to a critical analysis of performance-based identity and how an understanding of sociological concepts and ideas might assist chaplains in their work with elite athletes. The paper concludes by identifying sports chaplains as key figures in the disruption of performance-based identity.

AN INCREASED USE OF GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM (GPS) MONITORING WITHIN PROFESSIONAL SPORT HAS LED TO AN EVOLUTION IN THE ROLE OF THE STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING (S&C) COACH. THIS ROLE CONTINUES TO GRAVITATE TOWARD A GREATER EMPHASIS ON THE COLLECTION, DISCERNMENT, AND APPLICATION OF GPS DATA. HOWEVER, THERE ARE NUMEROUS IMPLICATIONS SURROUNDING THE USE OF MONITORING TECHNOLOGIES BY COACHES THAT SPORT SOCIOLOGISTS HAVE SHOWN THROUGH THE WORK OF FRENCH PHILOSOPHER MICHEL FOUCAULT THAT CAN BE POTENTIALLY PROBLEMATIC FOR ATHLETES' DEVELOPMENT. S&C COACHES NOW REQUIRE GUIDANCE TO HELP THEM TO USE THESE TOOLS. HERE, WE PRESENT SOME SUGGESTIONS TO HELP THE S&C COACH IN THIS ENDEAVOR.