Career development in Women Football Refereeing: an exploratory study in Portugal and Spain
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v63.109962Keywords:
Career development, female referee, football, recruitment, retentionAbstract
Introduction: The career of a female football referee is challenging, with only a few achieving excellence and international recognition due to the high demands and difficulties in maintaining sustainability.
Objective: to identify the most effective strategies in selection, recruitment and retaining of women football referees as well as determine the main barriers for a female as a football referee in a men-dominated sport in Portugal and Spain.
Methodology: 427 women referees aged between 11 and 50 yrs. (25.1±6.7) belonging to the regional and national Portuguese and Spanish Football Federations. The Referee Retention Scale was used to identify some variables that could influence the retaining of women refereeing, a focus group was conducted, and a semi-structured qualitative interview was performed to complement data.
Results: Mentoring was the most important dimension regarding the retention on women referee career followed by Intrinsic Motivation on both countries.
Discussion: Referee's career sustainability was also influenced by main barriers, which were related with three aspects: lack of institutional support throughout the career; lack of potential career; difficulty in reconciling personal and professional life, namely lack of support in motherhood.
Conclusions: This article opens a new perspective on women’s referee career sustainability. Its content may constitute an important insight for the implementation of women referee career, namely from base to top.
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