Project Footballer

Recently - news broke about the new changes which have been made to academy football, this sent shockwaves across the industry. Therefore, we hopped onto an online call to discuss these changes which have been applied to academy football at all ages and whether they are a positive or negative decision.  We hope you find this episode useful and informative, and enjoy our discussion!

James Fahmy spent his whole career in the academy system, playing for Queens Park Rangers FC and captaining the U18 Professional Development Team. However, he is now studying at the renowned Harvard University, where he is also a NCAA Division 1 student-athlete for the college. We take a look at his journey to Harvard, and the reason why he turned down the oppurtunity of a professional football contract, to focus on his education.  We hope you enjoy this episode! Let us know in the comments!

Ex-England Futsal player Rob Ursell has had an amazing career in futsal and football. Known in non-league football as "The Wizard", Rob changed his game from being a brilliant 1v1 player to a controlling team player. He has strong views on what's wrong with English academies and why England will never win anything with our current teaching methods. This is a fascinating episode which we found to be extremely thought provoking. How will you think about the development of your child after watching this? Will your thoughts change and will you try to develop your child's football IQ at an earlier age as a result? Let us know in the comments below.

Professional Footballer Fabio Sole and Daniela Osu, a Sports Psychotherapist, discuss coping with mental health & bullying within Academy Football. They also discuss Footballers Minds, a programme, full of activities and techniques targeting the maintenance of wellbeing within football.

In this episode of Project Footballer, we speak to Daniel Geey. He discusses the do's and don'ts of sports law in youth football. Daniel's clients include Premier League clubs, Champions League football clubs and top agencies. He is an author of multiple books on football contracts and sports law and a partner in the sports group Sheridans. In this fantastic episode, Daniel breaks down what is fact and fiction relating to football agents working with academy players.

Social media is prevalent in youth football. Parents are starting accounts for their children at younger and younger ages, but what are the impacts of this?  Does it put pressure on the child? Does it make the child focus on the wrong parts of the game?  Is there money to be made from your child generating thousands of followers?  We speak to Shane O'Brien, a social media expert who has worked with the likes of Ronaldo, Sterling, Ibrahimovic and many more of the top players in the world. 

Isa is regarded as one of the best technical coaches in the world. From his demonstrations, to the explanations and his passion for the game, this is a great listen for anyone looking to help their child become the best player they can be.

In this episode, we recap what we have learned from the previous 8 episodes. We push to find the answer to discover 'What is the formula to making a footballer!' 

The question we spend the most time discussing is, how important is athleticism? We go down a lot of rabbit holes and really try to answer this question. We don't get an answer and we argue a lot, but there it's certainly a thought-provoking conversation.   

Give us your views in the comments below. How important do you think athleticism is to make it as a footballer?

In this incredible interview Jamie Redknapp gives us the scoop on how his father and uncle developed two of England's best ever midfielders. He also speaks about his own son's journey through academy football at Chelsea and his thoughts on how much of becoming a footballer is down to nature and how much is down to nurture.

Ethan Pinnock is currently playing a signifant role in Brentford's debut season in the Premier League, but it hasn't always been smooth sailing for Ethan. He tells us what it was like to be released from Millwall at the age of 15 and how he had to make his way in football from playing in the Conference League to then climbing the ladder to reach the Premership. Ethan has so many insights to offer to parents of children looking to become footballers.