ANALYSIS OF FOOTBALLERS� PERCEPTION REGARDING THE SPORT RETIREMENT PROCESS

Abstract

Macarena Lorenzo and M. Rocío Bohórquez

Retirement from sport is often a period of crisis where
occupational, financial, social and psychological demands and adjustments
have to be made (Cury, Ferreira and Leite de Barros, 2008). In line with recent
contributions on the topic of retirement from sport, this study aims to
descriptively analyse how players from a football club perceive the process of
retirement from sports. For this end, the Questionnaire Diagnosis of
Employability of Top Athletes was used (Lorenzo and Bueno, 2012) with 57
soccer players (20 males and 37 females). The results indicate that footballers
from the club believe that their retirement will be voluntary, planned, due to
sporting reasons, age and will occur at the expected time. Among the
foreseeable consequences indicated are the decrease in training times and
frequencies, while it is also believed that interpersonal relationships will not
change as a result of this process.