Mind the Gap: Closing the gap between the end of the professional soccer career and entering the labour market

Professional players with a view on continued employment upon sports-career termination encounter fewer difficulties adapting to their post-sport life. Therefore, it is recommended for players to engage in a dual career (DC) or pre-retirement planning. However, there exists a lack of empirical data and evidence-based practices with regard to DC and career-transition support services for professional football players (European Commission, 2012). The current presentation will show how the "Mind the Gap" project will address these concerns. The "Mind the Gap" project, coordinated by FIFPro, was initiated in 2017 with the support of the Erasmus+ program of the EU. The project brings together three expert partners (4Player Denmark, IRUPA, TASS), one research partner (VUB) and five European players’ associations (PSAP Cyprus, JPY Finland, SFS Sweden, PSAP Greece, PFA Ireland). Mind the Gap focusses on research in order to assist (1) semi-/professional football players preparing for a successful transition into a purposeful post-soccer career, and (2) transition-support providers to optimize the quality of their services and to create a long-term capacity of the services. To address these aims, Mind the Gap will provide data on (1) support-providers’ roles and competencies to guide athletes before, during and after their transition, (2) players’ competencies needed to be successful in their (future) employment, and (3) instruments and methods to develop and build long-term capacity. The presentation’s objectives are to (1) highlight preliminary results on the roles and competencies of career-support providers and (2) introduce how future research will address the aims of the project.