Participation motivation among young soccer athletes: research evidence from greece

The purpose of this study was to determine participation motives of youth soccer players and to examine their participation motives with regard to their age, sport experience, and training volume levels. The sample of this empirical research consisted of 171 young soccer athletes from 16 different soccer teams, all located in the prefecture of Ilia, Western Greece. The well-known sports participation motivation questionnaire (PMQ) was used. Analysis of data was conducted by the use non-parametric k-independent-samples t-tests. The results showed that among the components of the sports participation motivation, significant differences were observed for the aspects of achievement and the aspect of finding friendship. No other significant differences were found. The results of this study confirm that sport experience and the athletes’ age is effective in motivating athletes' continuation and commitment to their physical activity. Article visualizations: