FORMER PLAYERS AS FOOTBALL COACHES IN POLAND

Should sports clubs be managed by former professional athletes? There is a belief in the sports world that team management is a mystery, something that only former players can understand. Some studies indeed indicate that practicing sports may actually predispose a person to also performing managerial functions. The aim of the research was to verify if former professional football players do better than other people as coaches of football clubs. The interest in this topic was due to the fact that like a top manager in a company, a coach is a very important figure in the football club and sport is an important part of the global economy today. The research was based on the top Polish football league – Ekstraklasa. The study covered the years 2015-2020 and during this period, a total of 46 head coaches worked in the analyzed clubs. The results indicate that owners of football clubs often hire former successful athletes, and in the research group their average results were better than others. Keywords: former professional players, management in football, team performance