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pfsa football scouting

My journey to (hopefully) becoming a professional football scout through the PFSA

By BloggerPosted on Posted in Scouting

Like many children of my age, I grew up wanting to be a professional footballer. However, a familiar story of injuries, bad luck, and mainly not being good enough put a stop to my dreams.

Football was my first love and obsession, and it has carried on into my adult years.

A took a different path into football

In my teens and early twenties, I didn’t know what to do with my life. I have always been interested in writing, but surely nobody would pay me to do that.

I found my first writing job by accident when I was working in education. I was looking to boost what was my poor salary at the time, so I googled remote jobs.

Bearing in mind this was nearly two decades ago, so there weren’t as many scammers or fakes on the internet. I found a forum for remote work, and somebody was looking for a football writer.

I had never written about football before but had cobbled together a few film scripts, which, even to this day, remain unseen by anybody but myself and a few close friends. However, this was a golden opportunity to write about football. I couldn’t believe my luck.

The opportunity was too good to miss. I took the job and then another and another, and ten years ago, I ended up starting my own small content agency, with writers producing work on all sorts of subjects, not just football.

For someone with no formal training, it was a significant achievement. Writing gave me a reasonably comfortable living, and everything was going well.

Why a twist of fate led me back to football

man working on laptop writing yawning tired

In January 2023, I decided to start cutting down my client base and ended up with just two. The two clients both paid fair rates, and they were also extremely easy to deal with. (Most of the time!)

The money was enough to stay comfortable without the considerable stress of running the agency. Everything was great until June 2024, when my main client sites experienced a sharp dip in visitors due to external factors.

A lack of visitors means a lack of money to pay your writers. Unfortunately, they had to let me go, which left me with just one writing gig, and there was a sharp decrease in revenue.

However, my other client sent me more work, which has been a significant help, and I will always be grateful for their help.

A fresh start with football learning

Suddenly, I had lots of free time, and it got me thinking about what I could do with my life except for writing, of course. I had accumulated many contacts on LinkedIn who were involved in football.

Looking at some of their profiles, I could see that they had various qualifications related to the game. Many of them had FA and other qualifications from other official bodies.

Just like with the football writing, I thought, ‘I can do that’. So, off I went in search of courses. I started with the free online courses offered by the FA, which were a good foundation for any future learning.

Courses such as Safeguarding for All, FA Playmaker and FA Level 1 Introduction to Talent Identification in Football Certificate were highly informative and enjoyable at times.

I then moved on to some other paid courses. The majority of the courses I did were through the PFSA (Professional Football Scouts Association).

According to their website, the PFSA (The Professional Football Scouts Association) is the leading provider of scouting and analysis courses for clubs in the UK and overseas.

The first course I completed was the PFSA Introduction to Football Scouting, followed by Level 1 Data Analysis in Football and Level 1 Opposition Analysis in Football.

These courses gave me a clearer view of different aspects of the various roles in football. They were pretty basic, and anybody with a passion for football could probably complete them.

They served their purpose in helping me decide which area of the game I wanted to focus on, and that was scouting or talent identification, which has in the past interested me.

That led me to pay £110 to do the PFSA Level 2 Talent Identification in Football. As I had already completed Level 1 with the FA, this was the logical next step.

It’s obviously more in-depth than Level 1 and is a professional qualification that can lead to future employment as a scout or a stepping stone to further learning.

As I have good football knowledge and have taken similar courses, it wasn’t too difficult to do most of the course. I took the online version rather than the classroom version, as it suited my family life and job.

I really enjoyed the course, as most people with a passion for football would, I suppose. I completed the initial assessment and will complete the final part of the assessment over the next few days.

The final part of the course is slightly more challenging, as you have to watch a pre-recorded game and write a player report for a player of your choice.

The only negative about these PFSA courses is you only have access to your account and certificates if you have an ongoing course.

Unfortunately, as I write this article, I am locked out of my account as I have finished the initial assessment. The software has locked me out of my account.

I have been in touch with PFSA via chat, and hopefully, they can reopen my account so that I can get my qualification.

All in all, my journey into getting back into football has been an enjoyable one. I have never been that academic, but like everybody, if I am learning about something I love, it doesn’t feel like work.

I have caught the learning bug, and no doubt, after completing the Level 2 course, I will do more in the near future. I will keep you all updated on my progress because If I can do it, anybody can do it.

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