English Schools' Football Association

This opportunity to join the fantastic National Competitions Department is not to be missed -

The English Schools’ FA is the governing body for schools’ football in England. We are a membership charity and our key activities include:

• Providing a national competitions programme each year: This year, over 40 competitions are being run and each culminates in a national final at a prestigious football venue;
• Defining the regulations under which schools’ football is played;
• Supporting our membership to increase opportunities to play football, particularly (currently) for girls and for players with a disability;
• Providing opportunities for school pupils to play representative football at district, county and national level, the pinnacles of which are the Under 18 English schoolboys’ national team and the Under 15 English schoolgirls’ national team.

The ESFA has a small paid workforce but its activity is primarily run by volunteers. We are now offering a graduate internship in our Stafford headquarters. The opportunity is open to graduates from bachelors, honours or foundational degree programmes in a related subject.

The graduate internship vacancy is a voluntary post and as such is unpaid. It is offered in the first instance for the 2017/18 season (July 2017 – June 2018) on a four day/week basis. It is the ESFA’s intention to seek funding to convert this internship to a paid post at the end of the 2017/18 season, but this is not guaranteed. Interested candidates should therefore give careful consideration to this factor when determining whether to apply. The ESFA will also consider expressions of interest from those in the “sandwich” year of their degree.

Whilst undertaking the internship, the successful candidate will benefit from:

• A full personal training programme to enable them to complete their internship successfully;
• Any team development undertaken as part of the ESFA’s team training plan;
• Reimbursement of approved and essential travel costs;
• Cost of overnight stays to support ESFA activity, where this is essential to ESFA business;
• The opportunity to develop experience in and a good working knowledge of sports administration, including sports governance, event management, sports sponsorship and general administration in a small but busy office;
• A reference and summary of achievements at the end of the tenure.

Interested candidates should read the role profile carefully, which can be found via the link below - and prepare an expression of interest, evidencing ways in which they meet the person specification and demonstrating their interest in football.

Completed expressions of interest should be submitted to Andrea Chilton, CEO, on no more than two sides of A4, no later than 17 July 2017. In the meantime, further details about the ESFA can be found here.