The objective: In recent years, issues related to the protection of athletes from abuse have always been considered. Today, emotional abuse is the most common abuse in sports, which in some cases has even been found to have more harmful effects than sexual abuse. Emotional abuse is a repetitive pattern of intentional and non-contact behaviors that is performed to control a person and is detrimental to their emotional, cognitive, or physical health. Very few studies have been conducted in this field, mostly on adolescents and elite children, and research on young and non-elite athletes is very limited. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of emotional abuse among semi-professional young male football players in Mazandaran province. Methodology: The present study is cross-sectional. A total of 41 football players from Mazandaran province (aged from 19 to 25 years old) participated in the study voluntarily. Semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data and descriptive statistics were utilized to analyze them and written consent has been obtained from all participants. Results: The results showed that 70.73% of the participants have experienced or observed emotional abuse in their teams during the years they have been active. It was also found that there is a positive and significant correlation between the experience of abuse and the age of the participants. Discussion and Conclusion: These results indicate the prevalence of this abuse among coaches and probably the lack of awareness of most of them about the harmful effects of these behaviors on the performance and psychological well-being of athletes. Therefore, identifying cases of emotional abuse and its extent can help increase the awareness of athletes and coaches to improve their performance and relationships.
