Negotiating Constraints to Sport Participation of University Soccer Players

The purpose of this study was to determine the strategies used by male university soccer athletes to negotiate constraints towards sport participation. Some selected socio-demographic factors (year of study, parental social economic status (SES), family involvement in soccer and birth rank) were correlated with strategies of negotiating constraints to sport participation. Data was collected through questionnaires from university soccer players (n=242) who were participating in a national university soccer championship. Pearson products moment correlation of coefficient was used to test hypothesis on selected socio-demographic factors and strategies for constraint negotiation. Findings indicated that the majority of players were either first born or second born and soccer was popular in their universities. The major strategies of negotiating constraints were time management, and interpersonal coordination. The selected socio-demographic factors had weak associations with the strategies used to negotiate constraints. Findings have implications to sport administrators in the universities and future researchers need to evaluate the association between participation motivation, constraints and constraint negotiation strategies of university athletes. Keywords: Constraints, negotiation, soccer, university