Investigation of football players' youth experiences from sports

The aim of this study is to examine the youth experiences of football players gained from sports. The population of the study consists of all 10-18 age group athletes playing football in Turkey. The sample consists of 250 athletes participating in football training in the Menemen district of Izmir. A personal information form developed by the researcher and the youth experience scale gained from sports were used as data collection tools. The scale was developed by Macdonald et al. (2012). The scale was adapted to Turkish by Yapar (2016). SEGDÖ consists of 29 items and 5 subscales in total. The data of our research was carried out with descriptive statistics and MANOVA analyses. Before data analysis, the necessary assumptions for MANOVA were checked. Findings: No significant difference was determined in terms of the sub-dimensions of youth experiences in sports according to the age variable, one of the independent variables (p>.025). Additionally, no significant difference was detected in the sub-dimensions of youth experience in sports according to the undergraduate status variable (p>.025). Conclusions and recommendations: No significant difference was determined in terms of the sub-dimensions of youth experiences in sports according to the age variable. Additionally, no significant difference was detected in the sub-dimensions of youth experience in sports according to the undergraduate status variable. Key words: Football, youth, experience