When someone mentions jobs associated with football, it’s very likely that being a footballer would be at the top of the list. It’s obviously an integral aspect of the sport, but there are lots of non-playing career paths in football that focus on stuff off the pitch. Without them, the football industry simply couldn’t function.

There are six distinct pathways in relation to career paths within the football industry. This consists of

• Business
• Media and Technology
• Governance
• Education and Community
• Coaching, Stadia & Operations
• Football Brands & Products

These all provide great opportunities to forge a career in football and you can certainly choose which particular path to go down.

The business pathway which is an important sector of all the non-playing career paths in football, contains roles to do with finance, brand, marketing, business development and sales. These are crucial to the running of every single football club both in the professional and semi-professional spheres. They provide revenue which can then be invested back into the clubs and fund potential successes on and off the pitch. Ultimately, it plays a massive part in helping to secure sponsorships and forging strong working relationships with local, national and international businesses.

Within Media & Technology, there are roles which include broadcasting, HR, journalism & photography, eSports and social media & digital marketing. If you’re a creative individual, this pathway is absolutely the perfect one for you. This can cover producing content either in written form or via videography and producing photographs during games and club events. Handling a football club’s social media accounts can be seen to be a challenging prospect in the non-playing career paths in football , but it also gives you the opportunity to establish your own style and voice.

The third pathway sees potential openings in welfare & safeguarding, fan engagement, officiating and education. Welfare & safeguarding are integral aspects of the sport and these policies must be implemented within all football clubs. They ensure that the correct procedures are in place to protect all those involved and deal with any issues that may arise. Meanwhile, the sport always needs officials coming through because their presence on a football pitch is fundamental to having games played.

As part of the coaching pathway, which is the closest to the players but still part of the non-playing career paths in football, you can take up roles in this pathway such as specialist coaching, sport science, scouting & analysis, nutrition and youth & academy. The specialist coaching can cover aspects to do with being an attacking coach, defensive coach or a set-piece coach. If you went down the scouting & analysis route, this could potentially see you be sent to watch individual players or opposition teams. Sport science is an ever growing part of the modern football industry which makes it a very desirable role within all football clubs.

If you decided to go into Stadia & Operations, you could go into a career in player care and hospitality or become a groundsman or kitman. Player care is another developing part of modern football which is much needed in order to help players navigate things away from the football pitch. Fundamentally, you always need ground staff to maintain the facilities both of the stadium and training grounds. As well as this, kits have to be efficiently looked after and equipped on match days.

The final pathway presents opportunities to explore within retail and e-commerce and focuses on products, equipment, apparel and brands. There are obvious crossovers with other pathways and it gives yet another way of getting involved within football. Club shops provide a good way of bringing supporters and their football clubs together through purchasing products such as replica shirts, training gear and special merchandise. When new kits need to be unveiled, it usually involves big publicity campaigns by the club’s media team and can sometimes go viral both in positive and negative ways.

Thoughts On Exploring The Non-Playing Career Paths In Football

The key message from this article is that there a plethora of roles you can take up within the football industry. The choice is yours with regards to which pathway you go down. There’ll always be a clamour for people to get involved with certain departments, so the demand is there. Ultimately, there’s a lot to get stuck into and it goes to show that it’s not just about what occurs on the football pitch.

We at Work In Football offer the guidance needed to be able to build a career in football. We will guide you, whether your impact is to be made on the pitch or off the pitch, our team is is ever ready to draw up a strategy from where you are to where you need to be. Contact us by email-jamescox@workinfootball.net or call us on tel:07385452796. We cannot wait to hear from you to start your exciting journey!