The adaptive capacity index: a sport management diagnostic for elite football academy architecture

Purpose/Rationale: Elite football academies are typically evaluated through compliance checklists, outcome metrics, and individual player ratings – instruments that do not assess the organisational conditions through which adaptive expertise is produced. This paper introduces the Adaptive Capacity Index (ACI), a composite structural diagnostic for academy governance. Design/Methodology/Approach: Adopting a theory-building design, the ACI operationalises five structurally derived pillars – Constraint Diversity Density, Temporal Plasticity, Cross-Domain Integration, Transfer Robustness Mechanisms, and Feedback–Learning Coherence – into a hybrid geometric–arithmetic aggregation model with weakest-link penalisation. Fifteen indicators were selected against three explicit criteria: theoretical relevance, documentary observability, and managerial actionability. Findings: The ACI yields a transparent multi-dimensional score (ACI/100), a five-pillar structural profile, and explicit weak-link identification. Sensitivity analysis shows that the ACI’s diagnostic conclusions are stable across plausible parameter variations. Practical Implications: The ACI equips sport managers with a governance instrument to audit organisational architecture, identify developmental misalignment, and prioritise redesign in elite academy environments. Research Contribution: This paper contributes to sport management scholarship on football academy governance, organisational design, and composite diagnostic instrumentation. Originality/Value: To our knowledge, the ACI is one of the first structural diagnostics simultaneously grounded in ecological theory, organisational systems thinking, and sport management scholarship.