Nurturing football talent: A conceptual framework for talent development environment

The environment is believed to play a crucial role in developing sport talents. Over the past two decades, a great deal of research has been carried out on sport talent development environment (TDE). However, few theoretical frameworks are dedicated to helping understand the TDE in a particular sport. Seeking a better understanding of the TDE in football, also known as ‘soccer’ in North America, this study proposes a novel environmental framework that takes particular account of the situational characteristics of football, using a conceptual framework analysis. The framework is organised hierarchically with two main factors: sport and non-sport domains. The sport factor is further divided into four sub-factors: football coach, interaction with teammates, football training, and football competition. Academic and family support are identified as two sub-factors of the non-sport factor. This two-domain and six-factor TDE framework can help improve the understanding of the application of the TDE factors in the football context and thus optimise the football talent development practice.