The causes of career termination from sport and their relationship to post-retirement difficult among professional athletes in Iran

In recent years, interest and concern regarding retirement from sport has grown considerably. The purpose of this study was to examine the causes of career termination from sport and their relationship to post-retirement difficult among professional athletes in Iran. More specifically, the current study aimed to explore Iranian professional athletesʹ career transition process through focusing on their reason for retirement, problems of career termination and the relation between them. The type of research method employed in this study was the Snowball sampling techniques. Participants were 70 former athletes (aged 22–58 years) from a variety of sports which had been retired for less than 8 years, ending a sports career at professional level. Participants were presented with the Sports Career Termination Questionnaire II (SCTQ II) assessing participants’ perceptions of the characteristics of the sports career process. One–Sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov, Pearson Correlation Coefficient, Partial Correlation and Paired t-test were used for the data analyses. Analysis of reasons for retirement indicated that this sample of athletes retired from competitive sport for numerous reasons, including achievement of goals championship, sport injuries, financial problems and having problems with coaching staff. Also health-related and job-related problems were the most problems which former athletes were confronted. There were significant differences between expected and received support. As well as, there were significant relationships between reasons and problems. The results showed that, there were no significant relationships between reasons and problems if received support considered as control variable (p?0.05). The finding of this research indicates that support is a very important factor for former athletes. Therefore, athletes who receive more support in retirement period may be experience fewer problems. Finally, findings support the Conceptual Model of Adaptation to Career Transition.