Controlling the work-life balance? A case of football non-participation in Australia

The purpose of this article is to report and analyse research findings on the relationship between organised team sport and the impediments to participating in it, particularly those related to working time. To date there has been limited study of the relationship between organised team sport participation and impediments to it, particularly working time arrangements, within the work-life balance debate - especially at a regional level. Our methodology involves a survey of and semi-structured interviews with participants. We find that the main impediments to participation in local soccer are injury/illness, work and family commitments. Impediments to match participation are dominated by injury/illness, however, work commitments are the principal impediment to training sessions. Our results imply that, in the regional Australian context, impediments to participation are limited but can be mitigated by the increasing flexibility of work requirements which would permit increased participation at training sessions.