More Than A Football Academy: Building Futures Beyond The Pitch

Football is the dream for millions of young boys and girls in the UK and around the world. Joining an academy can feel like the first step up to becoming a professional player, and for some, this dream becomes a reality. However, the pathway into professional football is incredibly competitive. Research published in 2025 highlights that fewer than 1% of academy footballers go on to play professionally as adults, demonstrating the importance of preparing young people for opportunities beyond the game.

At Kinetic Foundation, the ambition on the pitch is encouraged and fully supported, but it does not come at the expense of planning for the future. Football is a huge part of the journey for our young people, but it is only one part of their wider development. Our young people are encouraged to develop technically on the pitch while also exploring education, employment and career opportunities beyond it.  

This is where Kinetic Futures comes in. Embedded alongside Kinetic Academy, Futures helps young people build the skills, confidence and connections they need to take their next step in their professional journey, whatever that may be. Every young player deserves to dream about become ng a professional footballer; however, they also deserve a future that does not depend and rely on achieving one of the hardest outcomes in sport.  

KINETIC FUTURES

Kinetic Futures is designed to support young people beyond their development on the pitch. Running alongside Kinetic’s post-16 football academy, the programme helps young people think about what comes next for them whether that be education, employment or training. 

Through careers guidance, workshops, employer engagement and access to opportunities such as work experience and apprenticeships, Futures helps our students begin to understand the different routes available to them. This then motivates our young people to build and cultivate the skills that are needed to pursue these different routes, and we help them do this. It is to ensure that they know there is more than one available to them. 

This support is exceptionally important at a time when the transition from education into employment is becoming increasingly challenging for many young people across England. Latest Office for National Statistics figures estimate that 981,000 young people aged 16 to 24 in the UK were not in education, employment or training between April and June 2026, equivalent to 13% of the age group. Behind this figure are thousands of young people trying to work out what comes next, navigating tricky decisions often without a clear or thorough understanding of what is out there for them. 

Research suggests that practical, individualised careers support can make a real difference. A 2026 Government survey of 417 young people who were NEET found that the help and support they most commonly desired included careers guidance, interview preparation and advice around training2. These are exactly the types of experiences that Kinetic Futures aims to make more accessible. The programme gives our young people the space to explore and begin making informed decisions about their futures. Ultimately, Futures is about ensuring that young people know not only that opportunities exist but also feel equipped to pursue them. 

FUTURES IN ACTION

Kinetic Futures is built around a structured 2-year programme in Sixth Form. In Year 12, students are introduced to areas such as financial literacy, critical thinking, presentation skills and the business of sport. In Year 13, the focus becomes more practical with CV and LinkedIn development, interview preparation, mock interviews and 121 mentoring with corporate partners. This progression helps students move from exploring their options to developing the skills required to take this next step.

Each term, students are invited to take part in a workshop delivered by a specialist partner in the focus area for that term – for example, financial literacy is delivered by Flair Financials, who specialise in teaching the subject through football analogies which make even sophisticated terms and concepts easier to understand.  

GETTING THEIR FOOT IN THE DOOR

Government careers guidance cites research finding that young people who had four or more meaningful encounters with employers were 86% less likely to be unemployed or outside education or training than those without those encounters. Meaningful encounters can include employer talks, mentoring, work experiences, mock interviews or career events. This reinforces the value of giving young people repeated opportunities to engage directly with the world of work rather than relying on career advice alone.

This principle sits at the heart of Kinetic Futures. Workshops and opportunities are not only additional activities alongside football, but they are also chances for young people to build confidence, meet people working in different sectors, understand what employers search for and begin seeing how their own strengths could translate into a career. Importantly, these experiences can also introduce young people to possibilities they have never before considered. Not every student arrives at Kinetic with a clear idea of a career in mind so a workshop, conversation or experience can help our young people recognise interests that might otherwise have gone unexplored. 

A great example is the work the Kinetic Foundation has done with Howden, an insurance firm in central London. Howden employees have volunteered to act as interviewers, giving young people the opportunity to test their skills through mock interviews in a real-life setting, followed by networking with the company’s employees to support their understanding of work experience and apprenticeship opportunities within the business.  

Furthermore, a key part of Futures in the 121 mentoring programme, which many graduates cite as a key turning point in their future planning. From deciding to pursue a degree apprenticeship inspired by a mentor’s input on why university is worth looking at to securing apprenticeships, this personal connection is invaluable to young people at the point of deciding their next steps.  

A FUTURE WITH OPTIONS

Crucially, Futures is embedded within a Kinetic student’s wider journey, meaning conversations about education, employment, and long-term aspirations can take place alongside their football development.

Planning for a career beyond playing football should not mean giving up on becoming a footballer. At Kinetic, the two can coexist alongside one another. Rather than waiting until a young person reaches the end of their programme, Futures encourages conversations around careers, education and employment while they are still pursuing their football ambitions. Young people can continue to give their all to their development on the pitch while also understanding their strengths, exploring industries and building a wider picture of what their future could look like. 

This distinction is important as career development should not suddenly become relevant only because football has not worked out. It should form a part of developing a young person from the beginning.  

Research across academy football supports the importance of this broader approach to development. A study involving Premier League and EFL academy managers highlighted recognition within the professional game that the majority of academy players will ultimately need to progress into opportunities beyond professional playing careers. The research therefore emphasises the significance of developing wider skills and experiences that allow and support young players to progress and exceed in other areas of life. 

Importantly, thinking about life beyond football does not necessarily reduce a young player’s ambition within the game. Research involving 12 players at an EFL Championship academy found that all still aspired to become a professional footballer, yet 8 also had another career option in mind4. This included industries like physiotherapy, sport science, business, law and engineering. This shows how pursuing football and thinking seriously about other future possibilities do not have to be competing ambitions. 

For Kinetic, Futures is not about creating a plan B or treating these ambitions as a fallback, it is about ensuring every young person has multiple plans and pathways, without asking them to give up on the dream that brought them to Kinetic in the first place. 

SUPPORTING THE WHOLE JOURNEY

For young people who have spent years and put so much energy into pursuing football seriously, the game can become closely tied to their identity and sense of direction. When so much time and ambition is invested in one environment, a change in that pathway can affect much more than sporting progression alone. 

Research into the psychosocial impact of release from youth sport has found that young athletes with a particularly strong or narrow athletic identity can experience greater difficulties adjusting when they leave a performance environment. The review highlighted that uncertainty around identity, future direction and life beyond sport can all contribute to a more challenging transition.  

UK focused research found that football academies had identified similar issues with transitions out of academy football bringing emotional and psychological disruption, particularly where football has played a central role in a young person’s everyday life and sense of self. Researchers have therefore argued for support that recognises the wider person behind the player, rather than viewing transition solely as a football decision.  

This is an important consideration for Kinetic, as supporting young people through football also means recognising that their development is personal as well a sporting. Giving them the opportunities to build up their confidence, interests and sense of identity outside of their performance on the pitch can help fabricate a stronger foundation when circumstances change or they make their next step. 

No football journey is completely predicable so what matters most is that young people feel secure in who they are and are confident in what they can contribute, regardless of where the journey eventually takes them.

REDEFINING SUCCESS

Kinetics' model differs from the traditional idea of a football pathway. The sporting objective of an elite professional academy is to naturally develop footballers capable of progressing through the game. Kinetic Foundation has a broader charitable purpose. Football is the hook, but the young person sits at the centre of the work that we do. 

As a result, success can look different for everyone. For one young person, success could mean progressing into professional or semi-professional football. For another person it might mean securing an apprenticeship, or going to university, or gaining work experience in their dream industry. None of these outcomes makes the original football ambition any less valuable, they simply recognise that a young person’s potential extends beyond their ability as a player.  

This broader definition of success is particularly important during sixth form, where young people are asked to make decisions about qualifications, university and employment at the same time that they are developing their own identities, interests and ambitions. Very few people at 16 or 17 have their future mapped out or know exactly what they want the rest of their career to look like and they shouldn’t necessarily have to. What matters to our young people is having access to the information, experiences and people that allow them to start finding out what they next step might be. 

At Kinetic, progress is therefore not measured by one destination alone. It can be seen in the confidence a Kinetic graduate develops, the opportunities they access, the qualifications they achieve and the decisions they feel equipped to make about their future.

MORE THAN A FOOTBALL ACADEMY

Football is what may bring a young person to Kinetic, but it does not define or limit where their journey can lead. Through Kinetic Futures, young people are given the chance to pursue their ambitions on the pitch while also building the skillset to construct a future beyond it. 

Becoming a professional footballer remains one exciting version of success but whether a Kinetic graduate moves into football, university, an apprenticeship, employment or another pathway entirely, our aim is that they leave Kinetic ready and prepared to take their next step. 

Being more than a football academy means developing more than footballers – it means helping young people build successful futures both on and off the pitch.