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Youth sports organization management and its challenges

Written by: Karl Demers February 2021
La gestion d’une association sportive et ses défis

Managing a sports association is far from easy. For a technical director or a coach, managing a sports organization requires a lot of time and effort.

A member from the administration or executive team may face several challenges daily such as :

  1. Players absences
  2. Lack of time due to high workload
  3. The lack of communication

In the long run, these are all things that require a great deal of time and energy. Without recognition, those challenges can quickly impact a coach’s motivation.

How can we avoid frequently encountering these problems?

Here are a few ways to get around these obstacles and save time so you can get more out of your work and get to playing!

1. Player absences

According to a study conducted in the United Kingdom, 33% of coaches say that one of the biggest challenges is the absence rate among players.

Needless to say, this is one of the major problems in Canada as well.

For a coach, it can be very disappointing to prepare for practice and find that only half of the team showed up. Most of the time, parents and players do not take the time to inform their coach of their absence.

It is a small action that requires little time, but that makes all the difference for coaches.

Solutions :

Using an online sports association management app is probably one of the best solutions for you. With this type of software, parents and players can indicate their presence at a game or practice directly from their mobile devices.

Benefits :

Thanks to this kind of software, the coach will receive a notification if a player needs to miss an event. The coach will therefore know the exact number of players present during a match or practice.

It will also allow the coach to find replacement players much faster. Everyone wins!

2. Time

A coach’s or technical manager’s workload can be very heavy. About 1 in 3 coaches considers that the amount of time invested in running a sports organization is also a major problem.

Whether it is in the logistics of early-season registrations or in weekly preparation, it is a job that seems simple, but that quickly becomes very demanding.

Unfortunately, when too much time is invested in administrative tasks, coaches have less time to devote to player and team development.

Solutions :

In the case of administrative document management, the use of a sports association app can always be beneficial. You will be able to submit important documents for parents to access at any time.

During the registration period, for example, you can create documents for parents to sign directly online and then enter the players’ information in Excel files.

This way will certainly go faster than with paper forms.

Benefits :

By optimizing your methods digitally, you will quickly notice that the workload will be way lighter. Of course, this will not solve all your problems, but it will help you to better maximize your management time.

You will then be able to focus on your goals and allow the club to prosper further.

3. Gaps in communication

Communication between parents, coaches, and players is the most important aspect of a sports organization. It is also one of the most problematic.

The biggest waste of a coach’s time comes mainly from the fact that he has to spend his time making phone calls or sending emails to parents.

Solutions :

Establish a simple and effective communication system with members of a sports organization from the start of the season.

Fortunately, with the web, it is very easy to establish effective means of communication between members.

A sports organization management application allows you to access the contact details of your team’s players and parents, to start discussions with them quickly.

You can also use group conversations on Messenger, text messaging, or apps like WhatsApp.

Benefits :

There are many benefits of having a good communication system between the different members of your organization.

You will save a lot of time simply by avoiding searching for hours for the contact details of a player’s parents.

It will also be easier for a coach to establish a relationship of trust with the parents because the exchanges will take place much faster.

With a club management software, you can also import important files, which will be available throughout the season and which will prevent you from always repeating or resending the same information constantly.

The management of an organization: an eternal task?

It is obvious that ensuring the logistics of a sports organization is a job that takes a lot of time. With the right tools in hand, you can reduce your workload significantly.

By using a sports association management application like MonClubSportif, you won’t waste unnecessary time with administrative tasks, such as attendance management and sending forms, because everything is done automatically within the application.

This will allow you to focus your energy on player development, without putting your daily routine aside. Ask for a demonstration today!

Karl Demers

Karl Demers is the founder of MonClubSportif. From an early age, Karl has been passionate about sports, whether it's soccer, baseball, field hockey, volleyball... and the list goes on. To combine business with pleasure, Karl has been passing on his passion for 8 years now through the blogs he writes and the information he shares to simplify the lives of sports enthusiasts like himself.
Karl Demers

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