Coaches swearing at children: what parents should watch for and how to raise it

Most parents who spend time on a touchline have heard a coach lose their temper. A raised voice after a sloppy pass is one thing. An adult swearing at a group of teenagers week after week, while the players turn on each other unchecked, is something else - and it's far harder to challenge when your child is in an academy and everyone is hoping for a contract.

On a Project Footballer Instagram live, Darius Charles and Dan Edwards spoke to Jess Warner, a blogger and mum of five boys, about what she saw at one academy and what she did about it. We've deliberately kept family details out of this piece. The useful part for other parents is what she noticed, how she raised it and what the panel took from it.

Noticing the change

Jess said the first warning sign wasn't anything said on the pitch. It was at home: her son no longer wanted to go to training, and he was moody, withdrawn and not himself. Teenagers don't always talk, but in her experience a long car journey home gave him the space to open up.

For the first few weeks she had stayed in the car during sessions. When she started getting out to watch and listen, she didn't like what she heard. According to Jess, there was no energy in the group, and the players were quick to turn on each other with snide, nasty comments whenever someone made a mistake. Other parents noticed it too.

Banter or something worse?

With five boys at home, Jess was clear that she knows what normal teenage banter sounds like. This, in her view, went further - and the bigger problem was that nobody was stopping it. Rather than nipping it in the bud, she said, the coach in charge was at least as negative as the players, swearing and shouting at them himself.

"He was an angry man in charge of a lot of children."

She was careful not to blame the players. In her view they were all under huge pressure, and the longer-serving ones who felt threatened by a newcomer would keep the comments going for as long as they could get away with it. In her view it was down to the adults in charge, and that responsibility covers players' wellbeing as well as their football, because "if they're not happy then they're not gonna be playing good football anyway."

Why parents stay quiet

Darius offered some context - not, he stressed, as an excuse. Coaches at lower-league academies can be poorly paid for the hours and the pressure involved, and Jess agreed they are often overworked. Neither saw that as a reason to accept it. As Jess put it, if a coach isn't in a good place, it's the adult's job to deal with that before it lands on the children.

Dan's concern was parents with tunnel vision. Chasing the dream, some focus only on whether their child made a mistake, rather than asking: "How is he being treated? How is he developing?"

Jess went further. In her view, "there's such a power imbalance" between coaches and families that parents fear speaking up will cost their child a place, a contract or a scholarship - so they say nothing, and that silence is what lets poor behaviour carry on. She also pointed out that many players arrived at sessions by minibus, with no parent watching. If you're seeing a problem, other children in the group may be living with it too, with nobody there to notice.

Raising it with the club

Jess took her concerns to a member of the club's player care staff, who had given parents a talk at the start of the season about mental health and the standards they could expect. She said the reply she got was to ask whether it was something her son could simply brush off - not what parents had been promised. She then went to another member of staff she trusted, and things were taken forward from there.

Jess said she wasn't the only one with concerns. In the end, her son chose to leave, deciding the environment wasn't worth it, and she says he is now enjoying his football again somewhere the players are happy and the changing room has some life in it.

Our take

There's no age at which it's fine for a coach to swear at a child, or to stand back while a group picks on one of its own. A slip of language in the heat of the moment is different from a pattern of abuse aimed at players. Pressure, pay and the demands of academy football might explain a bad day, but they don't excuse a culture. Clubs set out their standards in codes of conduct and safeguarding policies, and parents are entitled to expect those to be followed.

We'd also echo Jess's point that walking away isn't an option every family feels it has - for some young players, football feels like the only route. That's exactly why concerns belong with the people whose job it is to act on them, rather than being quietly tolerated. And, as Darius put it, "if one club isn't right, another one might be."

What parents can do

Keep talking. Jess's main advice was to "keep the conversation as open as possible" with teenagers, so they tell you how they really feel rather than what they think you want to hear.

Notice changes at home. Not wanting to go to training, going quiet or seeming low can be a sign something isn't right. If you're worried about your child's wellbeing, speak to a qualified professional.

Watch and listen when you can. Pay attention to how players are spoken to, and how they speak to each other, not just how your child plays.

Know who to contact. Find out who your club's welfare officer or safeguarding lead is, and read the club's code of conduct, before you ever need them. They are the right first route for concerns about how children are being treated.

Keep a note. Write down what you saw or heard, when, and who you spoke to. It helps you stay factual when you raise it.

Don't stop at "brush it off". If the first answer doesn't take your concern seriously, take it to the club's safeguarding lead and ask how it will be dealt with.

Remember it isn't one club or nothing. A different environment can make all the difference to a young player's enjoyment and development.