Effects of an intervention programme designed to improve emotional intelligence and foster the use of coping strategies among professional female football players

The aim of the present study was to analyse the effects of a socioemotional competence development programme entitled ‘Aurrera neskak’ among professional female football players. Participants were 37 female footballers, of which 51% were assigned to the experimental group and 49% to the control group. A quasi-experimental design was used, with repeated pretest-posttest measures. The programme comprised 20 sessions, each lasting 90 min and focusing on four content areas: emotional awareness, personal autonomy, emotion regulation and team skills. The Trait Emotional Intelligence and the Sport Coping Approximation questionnaires were administered before and after the intervention. The results of the analyses reveal that, following the intervention, players perceived positive effects in terms of emotion expression and perception, used coping strategies such as emotional calming and behavioural risk more frequently, and mental withdrawal (a maladaptive strategy) less frequently, during competitions. The results were positive in that they attest to the both trainability of socioemotional competences and their influence on coping styles during competitions among professional female football players.