Why France's 400,000 Volunteer Coaches Keep Showing Up on the Pitch, Unpaid
Someone keeps showing up on the pitch, outside the spotlight
On a Sunday morning, with mist still lingering over the ground, the first person to appear is neither a player nor a parent.
There is an adult lining up cones, counting bibs, checking the goal nets.
No wage is paid.
And yet, week after week, he stands in the same place at the same time.
Every season in France, more than 400,000 volunteer coaches take to the pitch.
From matches at the primary school level to regional adult leagues, it is unpaid coaches who sustain the roughly 12,000 clubs affiliated with the French Football Federation (FFF).
Learning this number makes you realise, once again, just how deep the roots run beneath the structure that makes this sport possible.
Certificates, paperwork, and the question that lies beyond them
In France's volunteer coaching system, there exists a document known as the 'bordereau bénévole', or volunteer form.
This is the official document linking a club and a coach, defining the scope of insurance coverage and setting out the coach's rights and responsibilities in writing.
The types of qualification required are also carefully specified, depending on the age category and level of competition being coached.
Coaching the U7, U8, and U9 age groups requires a corresponding entry-level federation qualification, and reaching the upper tiers of a regional league makes obtaining a higher qualification mandatory.
Moreover, starting from the 2026–2027 season, these requirements are reportedly set to become even stricter.
Viewed purely as a system, this looks like a 'well-organised structure'.
But shift your perspective slightly, and a different picture emerges.
Each year, it is the coach's own responsibility to confirm whether their qualification matches the category they will be coaching that season.
The system offers protection, but it is the individual who must act.
No one comes along to say, 'You're all set for this year too.'
Where do Japan's coaches stand?
Turning to look at Japan, one notices how similar the structure is.
Countless adults across Japan coach only on weekends, at local youth clubs and neighbourhood teams.
While holding down full-time jobs, they design training menus, deal with parents, and even referee matches.
The Japan Football Association (JFA) runs a licensed coach qualification system, with a staged learning path from Class D up to Class S.
But whether or not someone holds a qualification is not necessarily the same thing as what they are actually judging and deciding in front of the children.
The accumulated judgements a coach makes during weekly training sessions are recorded nowhere.
What words of encouragement did they offer?
In what moments did they give a player time to think?
Which mistakes did they laugh off, and which failures did they sit down and work through together?
All of this exists in a realm that appears in neither paperwork nor certificates.
'Continuing' is, in itself, already a choice
What makes the French system interesting is that it lays out a relatively clear path for a volunteer coach who wishes to 'become a professional'.
Starting from a federation qualification, moving up to a higher coaching certificate, and then on to a national qualification beyond that.
The idea underpinning the system is that, by acquiring not just tactical knowledge but also modern skills such as video analysis and data usage, the possibility of working as staff for a professional club opens up.
But at the same time, there is also this passage:
'A network — that is, connections with people — is a lever just as important as qualifications.'
Holding a qualification alone does not open the door.
What matters is the setting you have worked in, who you have worked with, and how.
That accumulated experience is what brings the next opportunity.
This is not a story unique to France.
In amateur settings in Japan too, the trust behind 'let's ask that person' does not arise from qualifications alone.
Showing up at the ground every single week.
Never neglecting preparation.
Engaging seriously with the children.
Such an accumulation, in time, becomes a coach's reputation.
What the paperwork protects, and what it can never reach
One purpose of the volunteer form is to ensure insurance coverage in the event of an accident.
When a coach is injured on the pitch, or when trouble arises because of their own instruction, whether or not that document exists makes a significant difference to the outcome.
This is a matter belonging to the realm of 'system infrastructure' — but flip it around, and it also means that, even now, there are people standing on the pitch without such paperwork in place.
Paperwork offers protection.
But how a coach engages with the children lies outside the paperwork.
The coach who gives the answer right away, and the coach who waits a little.
The coach who says 'do it this way', and the coach who asks 'what do you think?'
That difference is not defined by any system.
Nor is it something that can be defined.
And it is precisely that difference which, quietly, keeps shaping a player's judgement ten years on.
Next week too, the same person will line up the cones
When I first learned the figure of 400,000 in France, I found myself reconsidering it — not as a mere statistic, but as the story of countless individuals who have shown up, weekend after weekend.
Each has their own circumstances, each has their own reasons.
Because their child joined the team.
Because they wanted to give something back to the club that once looked after them.
Simply because they love football.
Whatever the motive, the fact remains the same: they chose to keep standing on the pitch.
When the renewal deadline for their qualification comes around, they study again.
When the rules change, they check again.
And yet, next week, he will come to the ground once more and start lining up the cones before anyone else.
The original story of the people who keep standing on the pitch
Many of those who become volunteer coaches once spent a period of their lives as players, kicking a ball themselves. There was a time when football was part of who they were. That feeling never quite fades, and even as their role changes, their feet still carry them back to the pitch.
The system defines a coach's rights and responsibilities in writing. But no document records why that person will come back with cones in hand again next week. The answer lies outside the certificate. What words to offer, and in which moment to hold back and wait a beat — these are not things a system can dictate; they live within the person. Some people carry, within themselves, their own reason for standing beside children. And that adult's presence leaves something behind in the children's memory.
France's 400,000, and the adults who show up at Japanese grounds every weekend, are probably no different in this respect. How they prepare and what qualifications they hold can vary from person to person — and that's fine. It is the people who chose to keep going who make this sport work, in every country, today as much as ever.
Three habits worth keeping as a coach on the ground
- At the start of the season, check for yourself whether your qualification matches the category you'll be coaching. The system won't tell you — it's up to you to act.
- After a match, jot down a quick note about the moment when you gave a player time to think. Not the score, but this habit, accumulated over time, becomes a record of your coaching.
- At the midpoint of the season, try putting into words why you keep coming here. It's fine if the reason changes. The act of putting it into words itself becomes a guidepost in moments when your resolve wavers.
- 'Precisely because it's voluntary, it is properly protected' — What France's system of 400,000 coaches asks of Japan's youth development scene
- What you should know if you're aiming to become a football coach — what France's qualification system teaches us about 'what lies beyond the qualification'
- The one question those aiming to become football coaches should ask themselves before pursuing 'qualification'
