Swans take on the working world

Football players are used to going through brutal physical challenges on a weekly basis out on the field, but a handful of Sydney Swans players took part in a different challenge on Wednesday, exercising their brains instead of their bodies.

Shane Mumford, Craig Bird and Mitch Morton were a few of the names to complete their Diploma of Management course through Sportsready NSW, an organisation that aims to provide education and training to elite footballers to help them prepare for life in the workforce once their playing career is over.

Players tackled 12 different modules throughout the six month duration of the course, attending class once a fortnight, culminating with a group presentation where they had to come up with a business idea, and then deliver a strategic plan as to how they were going to implement that business.

Bre Appel, Administration Assistant for Sportsready NSW, said the final presentations were a great success, and said that the course was vital for providing alternative career pathways to players after they had retired from the sport.

“It’s a diploma of management course and it’s targeted at Swans players to have that career pathway, so when they’re finished with their playing career they have something to do after, they can fall back on education, that’s what the course is designed to do,” said Appel.

“It went really well, I was actually very surprised. I was very overwhelmed with some of the ideas that the boys had…I think the boys went really really well.

“They have the opportunity to go to university, so it’s a direct career pathway into a couple of universities in NSW.

“If they wanted to go and do a degree obviously they’ve got that behind them, or if not, they’ve got a Diploma of Management so if they wanted to work in a management role with a sporting organisation or head into AFL headquarters they have that education behind them.”

The players will be marked on their final presentations, receiving feedback that will help them make the transition from the football field into the working environment when the time comes.

Appel said the program was especially important in giving players something to fall back on in life after football, which, given the unpredictable nature of professional sport, could happen at any moment.

“I think it’s really important, you never know what’s around the corner, you could be playing a game on the weekend, fall over, break your leg and that’s the end of your career.

“It’s very important to have something to fall back on and I think with our program, it really gives those players the education that they need so should an injury happen, should they retire, they can step into the workforce and they know what’s involved and they have that education as well.”