Sport, Chaplaincy and Holistic Support: The Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) in English Professional Football

Abstract

A consistent lack of achievement by the England national football team in recent years has led to English football's governing bodies carrying out an overhaul of youth player development. This process was initiated by the Football Association in the late 1990s and eventually led to the English Premier League introducing the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) in 2012, a long-term strategy aimed at producing a greater number of talented ‘home-grown’ young players. The EPPP is designed as a system of ‘holistic support’ to produce not just technically proficient athletes but also good role models who understand the significance of professional football in contemporary culture. This paper comprises a small-scale qualitative study of how one Premier League football club utilized sports chaplaincy as part of its EPPP framework. Placing respondent accounts at the centre of the analysis, the paper seeks to illustrate how chaplaincy provision might enhance holistic support mechanisms within elite sporting organizations. The paper concludes by suggesting that the sports chaplain can play a key role in the non-performance aspects of youth player development which may ultimately benefit team success.

Keywords:

• sport
• chaplaincy
• holistic well-being
• youth development
• qualitative research
• professional football

Notes on contributors

Christopher Roe is a postgraduate student in the School of Sport and Exercise at the University of Gloucestershire, UK.

Andrew Parker is Professor of Sport and Christian Outreach at the University of Gloucestershire, UK.

Notes

1 In order to preserve anonymity, pseudonyms have been used throughout.