Jake loves football and dreams of becoming a professional footballer. He's worried about his height though - what if he's too small for football? But on the day of his trial Jake is quick on the ball and scores - he's made it! Jake can't wait to pull on his shirt and join the team. But someone at the club wants to make his life difficult. Can Jake face up to the bullies and become man of the match again? Stay on the ball this season with the first four stories following the boys in United's under-twelves.

Yunis can't believe that he's United leading scorer. It should be the happiest time of his life, but his father wants him to give up football and work hard at school. Can Yunis convince his dad that he can do both, or will he have to hang up his boots forever? Stay on the ball this season with all the action from Football Academy.

The identification and development of talented young players has become a central concern of football clubs at all levels of the professional game, as well as for national and international governing bodies. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive survey and assessment of youth development programmes in football around the world, to highlight best practice, and to offer clear recommendations for improvement. The book draws on original, in-depth research at eight elite professional football clubs, including Barcelona, Ajax and Bayern Munich, as well as the French national football academy at Clairefontaine. It adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, including psychology, coaching and management studies, and covers every key topic from organisational structures, talent recruitment and performance analysis to player education and welfare. Written by two authors with extensive experience in English professional football, including five Premiership clubs, this book is important reading for any student, researcher, coach, administrator or academy director with an interest in football, youth sport, sports development, sports coaching or sport management.

Ben is at his happiest playing for United and is getting top marks from the coach. But every day at school is a trial for Ben, as he struggles to hide a huge secret from his teachers and classmates. Ben�s secret is starting to affect his game � can he swallow his pride and ask for help before he sidelines himself � for good?

This is a handbook for leading a professional football club to commercial success. Covering every aspect of the business and commercial operations of a modern football club, and with a focus on increasing revenues and building a powerful brand, this book explains how to take any club to the next level and increase brand value. Drawing on the authors’ extensive experience of working in elite professional football, this book covers all the core areas of club management, from brand identity, brand positioning, strategy and planning, human resource management and developing partnerships, to marketing, ticketing, venue operations and merchandise. It examines the importance of business models and achieving club stability and sustainability, and introduces cutting-edge topics that are having an increasing impact on the development of football clubs, including corporate social responsibility, eSports and women’s football. This book is full of real-world cases and data, and offers clear theoretical and practical guidance in every chapter. This book is essential reading for anybody working in professional football and for anybody taking courses in executive football education, football studies or sport management. It is also a valuable resource for anyone who has a general interest in the business and commercial aspects of managing a professional football club.

The rapid global growth of the sport industry has prompted the need for a more commercial approach to the management of sport clubs. This book is the first study of its kind to focus on the management of professional football clubs, providing a real-world insight into management principles and their practical application. The international commercialisation of football has led to a fundamental transformation of the industry’s management practices, given the financial rewards of success and the high price of failure. This book presents a critical examination of this transformation, questioning why clubs are increasingly adopting management strategies from other industries. Each chapter analyses the role played by a key leadership figure within a club, such as the owner, chief executive officer (CEO), chief financial officer (CFO), chief operating officer (COO), director of football (DoF), and head coach. Full of exclusive interviews, case studies and examples of best practice, this book sheds new light on the challenges of working in this extraordinarily high-pressure environment. Football Club Management: Insights from the Field is fascinating reading for all those working in or studying the management, marketing or administration of football.

This book presents a state-of-the-art overview of the science underpinning talent identification and development in the world’s most popular sport. It covers a broad range of topics that span the various sub-disciplines of sports science with contributions from some of the foremost scientists and applied practitioners globally. The chapters provide readers with a comprehensive insight into how sport science is helping practitioners to create more evidence-based approaches when attempting to identify and develop future generations of elite players rather than relying on tradition and precedence. This book dispels some of the myths involved in talent identification and highlights how science is playing an ever-increasing role in guiding and shaping the practices used at the most renowned professional clubs across the globe. It is a must-read for anyone involved in the game at any level including sports scientists, medical staff, coaches, and administrators. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Sports Sciences.