League Two football club Oxford United is offering ten young students the chance to gain valuable leadership skills with a business administration apprenticeship.
New opportunities for young people
The football club has teamed up with Abingdon and Witney College to offer ten of its students, aged 16-19 a chance to earn while they learn for 18 months, with a year spent taking part in the business admin apprenticeship. Successful applicants will earn £7,400 a year.
‘‘There are a lot of careers in football that people don’t often think about,’’ said Caroline Robbins, community operations manager for Oxford United.
‘‘There’s event management, coaching, refereeing, there’s a whole host of different careers. We are working to support young people into new careers by offering 11 new apprenticeship programmes.’’
The apprentices would also see what it takes to become a leader in sport, with the young learners shadowing Oxford United’s first team, while being fast-tracked onto a Level 2 coaching course run by the Football Association. As well as this, apprentices will also pick up a Level 2 NVQ in activity leadership.
‘‘We would like to think that anyone doing the apprenticeship could go straight into employment either with us or someone similar to us,’’ continued Robbins, who stated that the deadline for application closes on October 25th.
Premier league ambitions
This is not the first time that an English football club has offered apprenticeship opportunities for young people.
In July, Premier League champions Chelsea launched an accountancy apprenticeship programme for female apprentices, while Aston Villa gave two students the chance to undertake a similar course.
