Knowledge about the personal experience of burnout in elite coaches is sparse. We therefore studied subjective experiences associated with burnout in a group of elite soccer coaches; specifically how they describe perceived causes of burnout, symptoms and the subsequent recovery process. A qualitative approach was used, because our aim was to study the coaches’ personal experiences of burnout. We conducted semi-structured interviews and used interpretative phenomenological analysis to analyse the data. We interviewed eight Swedish elite soccer coaches who had previously reported high levels of burnout. We found two burnout profiles that matched the coaches’ perceived causes of burnout. The first was associated with problems in handling the performance culture itself and the second had to do with the overall situation, including workload, family and health. Our findings describe coach burnout as stemming from a combination of issues, related to both home and work. When combined with work overload, coaches who have problems handling the performance culture in elite sports, and who lack the tools to enhance recovery, are particularly vulnerable to burnout.

More than 30 years of research on athlete burnout has yielded important insights and questions regarding the onset, nature, and consequences of this detrimental syndrome. Not surprisingly, burnout is considered an important matter, both from a research and practical standpoint. We comment on the work of Ryu, Ali, Kim, Choi, and Radlo, who examined the impact of burnout on cognitive performance among athletes.

Although coach burnout has been studied for 30 years, what measure to use in this context has not yet been problematized. This study focuses on evaluating convergent and discriminant validity of three coach burnout measures by using multi-trait/multi-method analysis (CT-C[M-1]) model. We choose Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), the two dimensional Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI), and a coach version of Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (CBQ). Our analysis shows that MBI and OLBI cover similar definitions of exhaustion and depersonalization/disengagement and that CBQ measures somewhat different dimensions. A problem for OLBI is a lack of discriminant validity due to high correlations between exhaustion and disengagement. For lack of personal accomplishment/reduced sense of accomplishment CBQ measures a somewhat different construct than MBI. Although all three measures have advantages and disadvantages, we promote CBQ since it discriminates between dimensions and covers important aspects of burnout in a sports context that the other two do not cover

The aims of the study were to: (a) analyse the re-selection patterns in European youth basketball national teams, and (b) investigate how the chance of re-selection is influenced by the initial selection age and relative age of the players, as well as the long-term performance of the country at the youth level. The sample consisted of 8362 basketball players (5038 men, 3324 women) born 1988–1997 who have participated in at least one U16, U18 or U20 European youth basketball championship between 2004 and 2017. The results from the survival analysis showed that around 75% of male and 80% of female players participating in a championship were re-selected the following year. Also, initial selection age, relative age effect, and the country long-term performance influenced the re-selection rates, with relationships being different between men and women. To conclude, the results of the present study show that the re-selection process by which players progress in European youth national basketball teams is complex and influenced by several different factors.