Background: Leadership quality in sport organizations is a central determinant of athlete motivation, performance satisfaction, and interpersonal team dynamics. Transformational leadership, characterized by vision articulation, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, and inspirational motivation, has been extensively studied in organizational management; however, its application in professional South Asian football contexts remains sparsely examined.

Objective: This study examined the relationship between coaches' transformational leadership behaviors and athlete satisfaction and team cohesion in professional football clubs operating within the South Asian sports ecosystem.

Method: A descriptive-correlational survey design was adopted. Two hundred and forty professional male footballers (n = 240) from 12 clubs across three South Asian nations were surveyed using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-5X), the Athlete Satisfaction Questionnaire (ASQ), and the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ). Data were analyzed using structural equation modelling (SEM) in AMOS v.25. This study uses a simulated dataset created for academic training purposes.

Key Results: Transformational leadership was a significant positive predictor of both athlete satisfaction (β = 0.61, p < 0.001) and team cohesion (β = 0.54, p < 0.001). Inspirational motivation and individualized consideration subscales emerged as the strongest independent predictors of team task cohesion.