{"id":31169,"date":"2025-09-10T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=31169"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:10:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:10:37","slug":"how-do-you-develop-the-most-expert-coaching-workforce-in-world-football","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-do-you-develop-the-most-expert-coaching-workforce-in-world-football\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do you Develop the Most Expert Coaching Workforce in World Football?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 10 Sep 2025 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

How Do you Develop the Most Expert Coaching Workforce in World Football?<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Coaching & Development<\/a> <\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/how-do-you-develop-the-most-expert-coaching-workforce-in-world-football\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
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As Jamie Taylor tells us, the Premier League-sponsored Coaching Expertise Project is challenging assumptions and establishing new standards. <\/p>\n \n \n \n

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Main Image: Phil Greig, courtesy of the Premier League<\/p>\n

By Dr Jamie Taylor<\/h6>\n
There is an enduring assumption in football that the manager of the first team is the best coach at the club.<\/h6>\n

Yes, a head coach could be an expert, but that team might also be blessed with a highly expert foundation phase coach or an expert professional development phase coach. Each faces different demands and their work as coaches is inevitably different, but each can be expert.<\/p>\n

My colleagues and I have been influenced by the adaptive skill model<\/a> of Paul Ward and his colleagues. We see coaching expertise as the ability for someone to form intentions in their coaching practice and then flexibly and adaptively work towards those intentions \u2013 or change those intentions based on the changing context.<\/p>\n

This idea is at the heart of the Coaching Expertise Project, which is an ongoing collaboration between the Premier League and Dublin City University and Insight Foundation Ireland. The project was launched in 2023 as part of the Premier League\u2019s efforts to cement its reputation as world-leading in coach development practice.<\/p>\n

Most of our data was collected by Mike Ashford, a postdoctoral researcher\u00a0at\u00a0the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, while at the Premier League, Scott McNeill, the Head of Coach Development, and Danny Newcombe, the Senior Coach Development Manager, have driven the work from their side.<\/p>\n

Scott and Danny\u2019s roles have been to ensure the Coaching Expertise Project is anchored in the real demands of coaching practice and closely aligned to both academy and first team environments. They have worked with clubs to identify expert coaches across phases and to shape the project so that it reflects the realities of their day-to-day work. This is important for them because their ambition is to impact the full coaching pathway, supporting ongoing development not only in academies but also in first team settings. More broadly, their main intention is to contribute to the wider football system by enhancing the skill and expertise of both coaches and coach developers. The Premier League sees this as part of a bigger picture as they work alongside their professional game partners.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Phil Greig, courtesy of the Premier League<\/p><\/div>\n

At the outset, we identified six coaches per phase across the Premier League, each working at a different development phase in their club\u2019s academy. These coaches were selected from amongst their peers \u2013 the only effective means by which we can say one coach is better than another \u2013 and invited to undertake an extensive research journey.<\/p>\n

Through this process we seek to better identify and understand the coaching demands at different levels. If we can understand those demands then we can be better at identifying expert coaches and helping coaches to reach an expert level.<\/p>\n

The coaches involved in the project love it too. They\u2019re constantly trying to find opportunities to learn and develop and it has supported their efforts to step into deep, reflective practice.<\/p>\n

And so in shifting that focus from mere competence to true expertise, the Coaching Expertise Project has challenged long-held assumptions and is establishing new industry standards.<\/p>\n

The issue with traditional coach development plans<\/strong><\/p>\n

Too often in coach development practice there has been a tendency to focus on coaching behaviour. That\u2019s antithetical to what expertise is because, by definition, expertise is about flexibility, decision-making, and changes to practice that are, frankly, not very observable.<\/p>\n

The risk in focusing on behaviour and attempting to change coach behaviour is that we end up reproducing what\u2019s already there.<\/p>\n

If there is too much focus on behaviours there is also too much focus on the coach and not their environment. This creates coach development plans divorced from demands. It is important to ask: is a coach development plan based on the demands of practice or on a series of generic capacities that cannot be tracked?<\/p>\n

Our project is focused on the interaction between the coach and their context because we cannot identify expertise unless we understand the interaction between a coach and the demands of their role. We\u2019ve identified a series of coaching demands \u2013 six or seven per phase \u2013 then mapped out the cues and strategies that expert coaches use to navigate those demands. It\u2019s not a list of qualities that says \u2018every good coach does this\u2019. The demands are consistent but the coaches are different, and they navigate those demands in reasonably unique ways.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Phil Greig, courtesy of the Premier League<\/p><\/div>\n

What \u2018expert\u2019 looks like<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Coaching Expertise Project has used this fresh understanding of the demands and coaching context to build a profiling tool that we want to embed in coach development at the Premier League.<\/p>\n

It will inform a needs analysis for each coach because we can better understand good practice and the development status of the coach in question.<\/p>\n

Capacities are still important. Entry level coaches will still need to show that they\u2019re good enough to enter a role, but the Premier League\u2019s ambitions extend beyond that starting point.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to be able to provide recommendations for coaches on the different demands of their roles and how they might work to develop themselves against these demands. Ultimately, we hope it\u2019s going to become embedded into coach development practices across Premier League academies and in the daily life of an academy coach.<\/p>\n

People have also asked me if we\u2019ve simplified anything for coaches. The answer is no. You\u2019d never say \u2018how do you simplify this for a sports scientist or psychologist?\u2019 because we have higher expectations of those professions. Coaches are some of the most expert practitioners in any field so it\u2019s less important that it\u2019s simplified and more that it\u2019s valid and useful for coaches, that it can be integrated into their workflows.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Phil Greig, courtesy of the Premier League<\/p><\/div>\n

Evolution not revolution<\/strong><\/p>\n

This remains a fruitful area for research. There are fewer than ten studies that have used expertise as a lens to understand coaching practice \u2013 and two of those studies have been mine.<\/p>\n

The Premier League remains committed to the ongoing development of coaches across both academy and first team settings. The central intention of the project is to contribute to the wider football system by enhancing the skill and expertise of coaches and coach developers alike. By doing so, we aim to strengthen the overall quality of coaching and create development environments where the very best practitioners can continue to grow and positively impact the game.<\/p>\n

We hope that this will eventually have an impact in the wider sporting world, but we are promoting an evolution rather than revolution, and if we can recognise the very best coaches and we\u2019re better able to develop coaches towards expertise, it\u2019ll see those coaches rewarded for good practice and then ultimately every player, when they walk into a club, is on the receiving end of high quality coaching practice.<\/p>\n

Dr Jamie Taylor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jamie is an Assistant Professor in the School of Health and Human Performance at Dublin City University, with a focus on coaching, coach development and coaching research. As a researcher, he supports practitioners on DCU\u2019s MSc and professional doctorate programmes and collaborates with high-performance sports organisations including the Premier League, GAA, IRFU, and Premiership Rugby. As a coach developer, he has worked across a range of high-performance environments. Alongside his academic and development work, Jamie coaches rugby union at Leicester Tigers.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you would like to speak to Jamie Taylor, Scott McNeill or Danny Newcombe about their work, please contact a member of the Leaders Performance Institute team.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

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