Luke Berryman, Dr. Gordon Bloom

The allocation of playing time in high performance sport is a process that significantly affects coaches and athletes (Corsby et al., 2022). Coaches face relationship strain and difficulty managing relationships with athletes receiving limited playing time (Giske et al., 2020). Moreover, athletes not selected for competition have dealt with significant psychosocial effects such as decreased confidence and isolation (Giske et al., 2020; Ulas et al., 2025). To combat these issues, coaches can prevent conflict and enhance athlete well-being by creating high quality coach-athlete relationships (Henderson et al., 2024). The coach-athlete relationship plays a significant role in how players interpret and manage their playing time, with stronger coach-athlete relationships helping athletes cope with their feelings of disappointment from not playing (Jowett et al., 2017; Ulas et al., 2025). The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study is to explore how professional soccer coaches navigate playing time allocation and manage coach-athlete relationships with players experiencing limited playing time. Eight current and former Canadian Premier League head coaches will be recruited to participate in semi-structed interviews. This study aims to address gaps in coaching science literature related to the management of elite athletes receiving limited playing time and can give insight into how elite soccer coaches create playing time strategies to inform other elite coaches.