Football Careers: Beyond the Pitch
For those football lovers out there, there are all kinds of jobs off the pitch you can pursue. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got what it takes to perform on the pitch, as long as you know your stuff.
If you know your Okoye from your Ezenwa when talking tactics, you’re already on the right path.
Careers in football
So, what are the key careers in football you can pursue even if you’re not a world-class athlete?
Journalism
The popularity of football as a sport relies just as much on those writing and talking about it as it does on the players. See Oluwashina Okeleji, one of Nigeria’s best sports journalist.
Okeleji works for for BBC Sport and knows everything there is to know about the game, which is why he gets paid so well to watch it and write about it.
Becoming a sports journalist simply requires passion, and with passion comes knowledge – you can develop those sought-after communication skills later.
Media Relations
Every celebrity needs a representative who communicates with the media on their behalf, and in today’s world, many successful footballers are celebrities and require the same – as do football clubs and stadiums. If you choose media as a career, you could be the person who provides those services.
Working in the media is all about relationships: you need to network and know what’s happening all the time, in sports, popular culture and politics. That’s what will help you get ahead. Most people start out working for a media relations or public relations (PR) agency, so that’s your first step.
Events
Organising a football game requires a huge team of event professionals, from those that manage the venue to others that work on the logistics, like security and hospitality. But that’s not all. There are also press conferences and team-only events that needs organisers.
To get involved in sporting events as an organiser, start out in-house at an agency or look for event management companies that specialise in sporting events.
Entertainment
From Sky to BBC Sports, there are all different kids of organisations that focus on getting football games in front of as many people as possible. And just like every other career we’ve mentioned, entertainment in the form of TV, film and radio need all kinds of people to run successfully.
As well as working in TV, there are other ways to get into the entertainment arena. See NetBet Sport has a huge range of betting sites that need football fans on their internal teams.
Scouting
Now, if you really want to be on the pitch and working with footballers, there’s no better career than football scouting. It is the responsibility of football scouts to go out there and find the next generation of talent;
they attend summer camps, football trials and regional games to find great sportspeople. There are various scouting courses out there that will put you on the career path.
