«By attending courses like this it will be possible to have better sports directors», with these words the Technical Commissioner of the Italian national football team Roberto Mancini greeted the start of the first Advanced Training Course in Management of Football Clubs of the Lum School of Management, accredited by the FIGC and organized with the collaboration of ADICOSP. The initiative was presented during an Open Day attended by FIGC President Gabriele Gravina. The Magnificent Rector of the Lum Emanuele Degennaro University, the ADICOSP president Alfonso Morrone, the Course Director Tommaso Marchese spoke with Mancini and Gravina.
«It is essential for a person who faces this type of work – explained Roberto Mancini – to have a high level of professionalism, not only for himself but also for the club he represents. I give the example of us footballers, who maybe after a career of twenty years think we can be coaches already knowing everything. On the contrary, it is by attending the Coverciano courses that one becomes a coach».
The inauguration of the course represents an important step in the football field, given that the Italian Football Federation has accredited and recognized for the first time a training project from a university for direct access to the federal qualification exam as sports director .
«In a historical moment like the one we are experiencing – said the president of the FIGC Gabriele Gravina – thinking that the world of football opens up to the academic one has great significance. Our system moves over four billion euros a year, an average match is played every 55 seconds. These two data are enough to understand how essential it is to have highly professional figures. For this kind of reasons – concluded Gravina – we have chosen to create a synergy with the LUM University, which combines the quality of the academic body with top-level organizational and management skills. The course we are presenting today is part of a broader design: a series of projects that we will develop together with LUM ».
The course, the only one in Italy, born from the collaboration of Lum with the Italian Association of Sports Directors and Collaborators and accredited by the FIGC, has as its main objective that of developing design and operational skills to train profiles in the professional football sector that have specific training to operate in the management context of professional football clubs. There will be 30 participants and 160 hours of lessons, of which 50 will be dedicated to supplementary teaching (laboratories, workshops, seminars, round tables and project-work), over a period of time that will end on 30 September.
“Our University – explained the Rector of Lum Emanuele Degennaro University in his speech – is proud of this agreement with ADICOSP and the accreditation of the Advanced Training Course in Management of Football Clubs received by the FIGC. What we have been trying to do for 25 years is to offer young people the opportunity to build their own future and in this case we have chosen a sector that moves economic, as well as emotional, interests of absolute importance. Train the new sports directors of football clubs in the best way to make all the companies operating in this sector more competitive “.
«Retrieve the ball in an advanced area of your future and don’t give it up anymore – with this metaphor the Course Director Tommaso Marchese encouraged the students to make the most of this opportunity – the educational program will in fact be developed thanks to qualified teachers, experts and professionals of the sector, professional football figures and managers of the federal structures ». Among others, the Technical Coordinator of the Nationals Maurizio Viscidi, the Under-21 Selector Paolo Nicolato, the 2006 world champion Massimo Oddo, two of the three members of the Italian trio in Russia 2018, the international referees Gianluca Rocchi and Elenito Di Liberatore, as well as to leading managers on the national football scene such as Fabio Paratici, Giovanni Sartori and Igli Tare.
“For the first time such a course is organized outside the walls of Coverciano – explained the ADICOSP President Alfonso Morrone -, which in any case remains an excellence recognized even outside the national borders, but in this case also thanks to vision of the Football Association and its President it was decided to give an academic dress to this path That of the Sports Directors is a sector too often characterized by improvisation and lack of professionalism. The Advanced Training Course in Management of Football Clubs aims to provide all students with all the knowledge and skills necessary to be able to undertake the best
