Stress and Coping Experiences of U.K. Professional Football Managers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Guided by transactional stress theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), this study aimed to explore elite U.K. soccer coaches’ perceived stressors, the situational properties, appraisals and coping during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also aimed to explore any variation in stress experiences across football league standards. Thirteen professional first team male U.K. association football coaches aged between 38 and 59 years (M = 43.00, SD = 6.94) participated in telephone (n = 5) or online (n = 8) semi-structured interviews. Informed by the philosophical position of critical realism (Danermark et al., 2019), Braun et al.’s (2016) six-phase approach to thematic analysis (TA) was used to generate competitive, organizational, and personal stressor themes. Deductive thematic analysis generated themes reflective of all situational properties of stressors identified by Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984), and an array of appraisal, and coping strategies. Future research and recommendations for supporting coach performance and well-being post-COVID-19 pandemic are offered.