The 10 Golden Principles for Coaching Children: Introducing the ICOACHKIDS Pledge

In the European Union (EU) there are approximately between 7 and 8 million youth sport coaches (Fig. 1) and the majority of them hold lower-level coaching qualifications or no qualifications at all (Lara-Bercial et al., 2017b). While sport includes benefits such as personal and social development as well as providing a nurturing and caring environment (Holt et al., 2017; Lara-Bercial & McKenna, 2018), there is evidence across the continent that participants continue to drop out of sport, especially in the adolescent years (Emmonds et al., 2021). Sport alone therefore, is no magic bullet, and coaches need to recognise the important role they play in creating positive environments for children and young people in youth sport. Environments that not only bring children to sport, but keep them in sport as active, healthy adults. The vision of ICOACHKIDS is of a world where every child has access to positive sport experiences that foster a love of sport, play and physical activity.