At this time of year, much of the focus is on retaining and releasing, and it has been the centre of most of the work I have done over the past few weeks. Parents contact me because they have received a decision from a club, and it isn't the news they hoped for. How can we begin to deal with this?
Why do players want to be professionals?
When becoming a professional player hangs in the balance or someone has decided to release a player and becoming a professional seems further away than it did before, I have found it useful to explore with a player why they want to be a professional.
Read next
Getting and Agent: How to...
If you read these blogs, you will know I love the conceptual idea of Simon Sinek's "always start with why?" and that it is worth asking about an agent.
"But they may as well take the extra training"
Research often flies in the face of "common sense". For example, we've all been told that practice makes perfect, so it stands to reason that the more we practice becoming a footballer, the more chance we have of "making it". Unfortunately, that is a very simple way of looking at things.
Do clubs have plans for their players?
It remains the case that in most academies, career planning is absent, leaving young players and their families vulnerable to clubs that, in many cases, also have not planned a player's career.