Prevalent Values in Young Spanish Soccer Players

The effects of sport participation on moral development of young people will depend on the directions made by the child's significant others as coaches, parents and friends. In this study we try to identify the dominant values in a sample of 40 Spanish male young soccer players (12-16 years old), through a semi-structured interview. The interview presents three different soccer situations, each situation allows to a dilemma. Content analysis of the answers and its justifications allowed to an identification of the underlying values of the player's responses. According to that subject's responses were grouped in 13 categories. As a whole, the players' more frequent values were: Winning, showing skills, usefulness (acting against the rules in order to obtain advantages for the team) and equity or justice. It must be followed from qualitative studies like this that a questionnaire has to be developed to easily assess the prevalent values on players of different sports, ages and levels of competition, as well as in their coaches. Such a questionnaire and some others observational tools, could also be useful to assess whether strategies applied to enhance fairplay have been successful.