Hand-Eye Coordination and its Relationship with Anthropometric characteristics of Professional Football Players based on their Playing Position

Football is the most popular sport characterized by high and low intensity movements with repeated physical contact. Anthropometric characteristics, coordination motor skills, and functional movement abilities are part of important determinants of success in a football game. This study investigated the relationship between hand-eye coordination and anthropometric characteristics of professional football players based on their playing position. A correlational research design was utilised for this study. The population for this study comprised of 29 professional football players who are members of a professional football club in Nigeria. The participants comprised of 12 forwards, 6 midfielders, 4 goalkeepers and 7 defenders. The weight, height, waist circumference, and hip circumference measurements were obtained using standardised procedures. The body mass index and waist to hip ratio scores of the participants were calculated. The alternate hand wall toss test was used to determine the hand-eye coordination of the participants. Pearson’s product moment correlation and linear regression were used to analyse the results. The level of significance was set at p < 0.05. A significant negative strong correlation was observed between waist to hip ratio and coordination among midfielders (r = -0.841, p = 0.036). There was no significant correlation between waist to hip ratio and coordination among forwards, defenders, and goalkeepers. In addition, there was no significant correlation between body mass index and coordination as well as waist circumference and coordination among football players in all the playing positions. Waist to hip ratio is an important anthropometric measure that can affect the coordination of midfielders in a football team. This should be considered by the coaches and football regulatory bodies before players are assigned to playing positions in the game of football. Position-specific training programmes should be encouraged to enhance football players' performance.