Emotional abuse is one of the most common types of abuse in sports. However, due to the lack of awareness of its harmful effects and the hiding of this abuse in the shadow of success, less attention has been paid to it.

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. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of emotional abuse among semi-professional adolescent male football players in Mazandaran province.

the present study is cross-sectional. A total of 59 football players (aged from 15 to 18 years old) participated in the study voluntarily. Semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data and descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation coefficient were utilized at a significance level of 0.05 to analyze them.

The results showed that 37.25% of the participants have experienced emotional abuse such as humiliation, insult, ignoring, ridicule, etc. by the coach during their sports career which resulted in outcomes such as depression, eating disorders, anxiety, and low self-esteem.

Based on the findings, it can be concluded that significant ratios of athletes have experienced emotional abuse that has adverse consequences and, in some cases, has led to quitting sport. Therefore, teaching athletes appropriate coping techniques reduces the frequency of common emotional abuse and protects them from it harm in the future.