The FIFA Master International MA in Management, Law and Humanities of Sport has been named Europe’s top ranked postgraduate sports management course for a record sixth time.
The year-long course attracts talented students from around the world looking to progress their career in sports management, leadership, and development. It is co-ordinated by the Centre International d’Etude du Sport (CIES) in Switzerland and delivered by De Montfort University Leicester (DMU), the SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan and Université de Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
CIES Director and IOC Executive Committee Member, Professor Denis Oswald said: “This is a wonderful achievement. I am delighted that the hard work and dedication of the FIFA Master Scientific Committee, Co-ordination teams in Leicester, Milan and Neuchâtel, and our graduates now working in international sport has once again been recognised with this No.1 in Europe ranking.
“To be named as the top course in Europe for an unprecedented sixth time this year is truly excellent news for everybody involved with the FIFA Master."
More than 500 courses were assessed in the independent global survey run by SportBusiness International. It looked at factors including student satisfaction, gender ratios, graduation salaries and employment six months after graduation.
FIFA Master students begin their studies at DMU, examining the birth of modern sport, its move into professionalization and ethics. It is run by experts at DMU’s International Centre for Sports History and Culture.
ICSHC Director, Professor Martin Polley, said “ This is such a great honour. We are very proud of the FIFA MA at DMU. It is a high quality course that attracts students of incredible talent and potential, and the links it gives us with leading international educational and sporting institutions is second to none. To win this accolade for the sixth time is evidence of how highly the global sports industry rates our work.”
It is the first and only course to receive this top award on six separate occasions, with previous No.1 European rankings in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017.
Today, more than 90 per cent of FIFA Master graduates are now working in the global sports industry for organisations including the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), International Olympic Committee (IOC), Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), Fédération Internationale de Basketball (FIBA), the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), Asian Football Confederation (AFC), European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) and the City Football Group.
Alumni include former South Korean international and Manchester United player Park Ji-Sung, New Zealand Olympic rower Emma Twigg and Pierre Ducrey, the deputy director of Olympic Games Co-ordination at the International Olympic Committee.
Speaking about their experience on the award winning FIFA Master, 2012 graduate and now Project Officer in the FIFA President’s Office, Mr Federico Raviglione said, “Although I already had some work experience in the world of sport, I knew I still lacked some sport-specific knowledge. The FIFA Master was the perfect choice in order to bridge that gap”.
Asian Football Confederation legal counsel and 2016 graduate Namrata Chatterjee said: “The FIFA Master connected me to alumni from all across the globe who have always been very approachable. Even when I first joined the AFC, the head of my unit at the time was a FIFA Master alumnus who gave me invaluable guidance and our common background made working together much easier.”
Anya Alderslade, now a commercial and marketing executive at European Professional Club Rugby and who graduated in 2015 said: “The MA pulls together people from all corners of the world and the relations with your peers and the cultural depth that is offered is something that I think is really unique and special."
Reflecting on the humanities themes explored in DMU’s module, 2015 graduate Kirsty Burrows is full of praise for the insights it has given her. Kirsty now works as a consultant on athlete safeguarding and gender equality in sport, and has authored the IOC’s Toolkit for policies and procedures to safeguard athletes from harassment and abuse in sport. She says “the basis of my work is in human rights – harassment and abuse violates human rights, and gender equality is an essential human right. The humanities module at DMU assisted me tremendously in developing my understanding and building my capacity in this area.”
The SportBusiness International rankings have been running for seven years and examine postgraduate courses dedicated to the business and administration of sport.
Posted on Tuesday 19 June 2018