SSC studies on women’s and grassroots football shed light on local football development

Football is indisputably one of the most popular sports in Hong Kong, if not the most popular. To further boost the popularity of football among the general public and as part of the city’s overall football development strategy, the Hong Kong Football Association (HKFA) has run women’s football and grassroots football development programmes for over ten years.

To gauge the effectiveness of the programmes, the association commissioned the Department of Social Sciences (SSC) to carry out a study to collect and analyze data from the stakeholders of the two programmes, to better understand the dynamics surrounding the participation of women and youths in football. While sports and health science experts have been engaged in earlier studies about these programmes, this collaboration marked the first time social scientists have been involved in this type of research.

Dr Lawrence Ho, Assistant Professor from SSC, worked closely with two SSC alumni, Dr Andy Chiu and Mr Wan Kin-man, for what he felt was a very interesting and meaningful commissioned project. “These two football development programmes have different stakeholders and are relatively independently implemented,” he noted. “While both programmes have achieved certain successes in expanding the reach of the sports to women and the youth, there is a lack of a comprehensive picture about the positive and negative factors that affect whether women and youths choose to participate in the sport.”

Entitled “Studies of Women and Grassroots Football Programmes in Hong Kong”, the research project kicked off last July and was designed around two guiding themes: Personal Development after Football Participation and the Developmental Strategy of Local Football. For the first theme, the study intends to understand the personal development of players as a result of joining the programmes through self-assessment as well as assessment from coaches, teachers and parents. The definition of personal development in this case includes physical and mental well-being, happiness, discipline, social inclusiveness, self-confidence and communication ability.

For the second theme, questions looked into the reasons behind the insufficient female and grassroots football population from the perspectives of stakeholders, and what factors affect a student’s decision to join football programmes. The second theme also evaluates the roles played by the school and PE teachers in the development of the two programmes, and whether the school curriculum matters in their promotion. The study also reviewed gaps in the expectations of parents, teachers, coaches and players.

As the stakeholders of women’s and grassroots football are different, the study was divided into two parts, probing into the respective dynamics affecting the development of each programme. While both quantitative and qualitative approaches are typically employed in social science research projects to collect information, the initially proposed school-based surveys were cancelled and focus group interviews were replaced by individual interviews due to the pandemic.

For the women’s development programme, the study received around 230 online questionnaires covering feedback from participants, their parents, teachers, and coaches. Ten individual interviews with women players, their teachers and coaches were also successfully conducted.

For the grassroots development programme, around 100 online questionnaires have already been received from participants of previous HKFA grassroots development programmes, as well as their parents and coaches. Control-group questionnaires were also collected from youth football players who did not take part in any grassroots football programmes. Around 20 individual interviews were also successfully carried out to gather more in-depth opinions from coaches and their parents.

Dr Ho, who is a football fan himself, enjoys playing football with other EdUHK staff during lunchtime. To him, football has a magic that attracts millions of spectators across the globe. “One of the biggest challenges for developing local football is to keep players motivated,” he said. “To move forward, we need to have a thorough investigation of the factors that encourage and discourage them from playing football.” Dr Ho expects the study to shed some light on how to effectively formulate the overall strategy for developing professional women’s and grassroots football programmes, and believes it will also provide valuable data for enhancing the career development of football coaches in Hong Kong.

Dr Ho said that studying football from a social science perspective is yet to be popular in Asia, leaving considerable room for development. “EdUHK already has a strong sports science discipline. Together with our scholars in social sciences, we have an advantage over other institutions in Hong Kong in developing cross-disciplinary studies in the field of sports,” the football scholar said. He hopes the ongoing study will stimulate more academic works in the sociology of sports at EdUHK and elsewhere in Hong Kong.

The project team has already finished an interim report in February. It expects more recipients to send in their questionnaires and for more in-depth interviews to be completed over the next few months before they carry out their final analysis. A final report will be submitted to HKFA around July.