{"id":831133,"date":"2026-07-28T09:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/831133\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T09:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:48:10","slug":"how-premier-league-futures-programme-is-helping-former-academy-prospects-soccer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/831133\/","title":{"rendered":"How Premier League Futures programme is helping former academy prospects | Soccer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWithin six months of being the captain at West Ham and playing in the Youth Cup, I was delivery driving at Domino\u2019s,\u201d says Iyiola\u00a0Adebayo.<\/p>\n

Adebayo had joined at eight the academy that produced Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole and Declan Rice and the defensive midfielder from Tilbury was tipped to follow in their footsteps when awarded a scholarship before anyone else in his age group. However, a dislocated shoulder set him back in the first year and despite making appearances for the under-21s and under 23s, he was released at 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey thought maybe being\u00a0in a new environment and being in a new club might allow me\u00a0to push on and thrive because I\u00a0had been there for so long,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a tough time, especially in terms of my identity. Because I\u2019ve always been Iyiola that\u00a0plays for West\u00a0Ham.\u201d<\/p>\n

Desperate to find a club, but not fully recovered from injuries that plagued his final two years at West\u00a0Ham, Adebayo went to several\u00a0trials \u201cprobably at 50-60% of what I was capable of\u201d and found\u00a0it difficult to cope with the feeling of rejection.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have to go to parts of the country I\u2019ve never been to before by myself, knowing I couldn\u2019t fully show myself, it was definitely challenging mentally for me,\u201d he says. \u201cI remember having some conversations with my mum and my friends at the time about how I was struggling a bit mentally, and sometimes I didn\u2019t want to be there, I wanted to go home. It was very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adebayo started working part\u2011time delivering pizzas to make ends meet when the former head of\u00a0education at West Ham suggested attending the Premier\u00a0League Futures programme. Adebayo was reluctant and had to be persuaded. \u201cI was still dealing with my release. Sometimes when you\u2019re in that phase you don\u2019t want to do anything that reminds you of that situation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The Futures programme started in 2017 as part of the requirement for academies to provide a minimum three\u2011year aftercare commitment for players released during the professional development phase (under\u201117 to under\u201121) and is an introduction into potential career pathways beyond the pitch. That includes two initiatives to support under-16 players without a contract \u00a0and a 12-month programme for current, as well as former academy players, between the ages of 18 and 24.<\/p>\n

For Adebayo, it has been life\u2011changing. He is in the final year of a sponsored football business and marketing degree at the University Campus of Football Business and also runs workshops to players in academies on mental health and lifestyle choices on behalf of Sporting\u00a0Chance.<\/p>\n

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Iyiola Adebayo now runs workshops to players in academies that focus on mental health and lifestyle choices. Photograph: Premier League<\/p>\n

He spotted the charity set up by the former Arsenal captain Tony\u00a0Adams had a stand at the Premier League youth development conference he attended as part of the Futures programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to speak to them when I was released because I felt quite a bit of anxiety around playing football and I did some counselling sessions with them. I remembered their logo and my experience with them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The workshops] are about dealing with the pressures of being an academy player, whether that be peer pressure or the pressure to perform. Sometimes it\u2019s about the messenger as well as the message. I\u2019m not that far removed from the experiences they\u2019re going\u00a0through.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old admits the Futures programme has opened his eyes to potential career paths. \u201cI thought you\u2019re either a coach, you\u2019re a player, maybe you\u2019re a kit man or a physio. But learning there\u2019s hundreds of roles where you can make loads of money and have fulfilling careers, I think I was ready to hear it and ready to take the\u00a0opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Neil Saunders, the Premier League\u2019s director of football, who studied at the University of Bath after being released by Watford as a teenager, there has been increasingly more emphasis on encouraging those not offered professional deals to move into higher education or to look for other jobs in the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cA relatively small number make it through to the first team, but we want every single young person that comes through the academy to be able to look back on their time positively,\u201d he says. \u201cMany of the boys will have spent a significant number of years in academies and will become experts in performance analysis or in strength conditioning and coaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there are a finite number of jobs as a professional player, we want to make sure we\u2019re equipping those young people with the opportunity to progress into roles beyond the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adebayo is planning his next step. \u201cI\u2019ve learned so much, because I\u2019ve been made aware of so much and improved my skill set so much,\u201d he says. \u201cFirst, I probably\u00a0want to work in player care and maybe after that I might want to go and work in the business\u00a0or commercial side of sport. It\u2019s made me very optimistic that I can still be involved in sport and football, but in many different\u00a0ways.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWithin six months of being the captain at West Ham and playing in the Youth Cup, I was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-831133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}