In the UK, the FA state that there are over 11 million people playing the beautiful game of football. However, according to a recent article published by The Guardian, there are ‘only 2,769 English coaches hold UEFA B, A and Pro badges’ (not including the FA’s level 1 + 2 badges). This means that if every player at every age group wanted to seek out coaching from a professional football coach – there would be class sizes of 3972 pupils per coach. Imagine that?!

Now this is obviously not happening as it just isn’t a reality that every one of those 11 million people are seeking out coaching, and that coaching must be undertaken by English coaches holding UEFA B, A and Pro badges’. You will never see a class being managed by one coach and 3972 pupils – visualise the amount of balls that would be flying around?

Even if we reduce that 11m down to 5m to get it down to roughly 120 pupils per coach (assuming a coach can train 30 pupils at a time in 4 separate sessions per week) - we would need 13,896 additional coaches to meet the demand. Again, this math is likely a way off, but it does paint a rough picture of the amount of under-qualified / unqualified/ unregistered / self-taught coaching that is filling the gap and meeting the demand for football coaching in the UK. The simple fact is that the coaches of most companies will more than likely have a level 1 or 2 FA coaching badge at most, but more than likely they won’t have any accreditation at all.

At this stage, we should point out that qualification is not the only benchmark for a great coach. There are plenty of incredible coaches, including our own coaches at We Make Footballers, who are not qualified with the professional FA or UEFA badges. Likewise, we have worked with many poor coaches who have such accreditations over our 10 years of operating as a football coaching company for the provision of football training for kids.

With the above in mind, it is vital for you to know what to look for when assessing the quality of a football coaching company you intend to (or already do) send your child to.

With your expectations met and the reality of the coaching landscape understood, your assessment of your child’s new football coaching company should include the following:

Class size / coach ratio
Do they have roughly a 10 children per coach ratio? Anything significantly more and even the best coaches are unable to manage the class properly or coach children effectively. This needs to be a key question when joining a coaching school. How best to check? Go along to the session and count.

Online Reviews
We all know that these can be faked (both negative and positive), but generally we can all spot the fake ones. Parents are very good at providing positive (and negative) reviews to help other parents keep their children safe. It should be pretty easy to find authentic reviews for their classes on Facebook, Google or Trustpilot. Spend time here.

Mission / philosophy
Do they have a clear mission or overview of their approach to football coaching. If not, maybe they are in it just to exchange money for coaching services. Football is built on emotion and love of the game must shine through in their coaching style. How will this happen if they aren’t using their organisation as a platform to deliver this?

Coach Training
Do they have a clear coaching hiring policy? A training programme for their coaches? Do they have their own accreditation or coaching tiering system? If they do this demonstrates a maturity in the coach development process regardless of whether they have official FA or UEFA Accreditations or not.

Coaching Style
Do they have a clear style of coaching that they adhere to and consistently offer? If not, they could be making up lessons the day before or just offering a ‘trial and error’ experience.

If you do decide to send your child to a football coaching company, here are 5 things to look out for in your child in the weeks and months after they sign up:

• They are withdrawn after a football coaching session
• They don’t look forward to football coaching after 2-3 months at the academy
• They do not appear to be improving in fitness or ability after 2-3 months
• They are not passionate about football after 2-3 months at the academy. A sign of this is no desire to practice or play at school
• They tell you they don’t like it repeatedly or cry before attending

If you are interested in assessing our football coaching company out with the tips you have learned above, please check out our website at: wemakefootballers.com and read about our philosophy/values, some of our fantastic authentic reviews, how we train our coaches and what our coaching style is.

We look forward to seeing you at one of our classes soon ;)

In fact, why not book on to a free trial today?