ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book draws an attention to adults who play an important role in the provision of grassroots football: volunteer coaches. It examines a selection of youth football development programmes around the world to offer recommendations for future improvement based on best practice. The book seeks to address the obvious lacuna which exists in the social scientific literature by exploring a number of essential issues which are regarded as being significant in youth and junior grassroots football. The book explores the cultural significance of grassroots football via analysis of elite female footballers' perceptions of being role models and the role this is believed to play in stimulating participation by females in grassroots football. It suggests that for the participants, grassroots football provides an important arena in which their transcultural encounters find expression and are negotiated in the context of their relations with others.
