A Tough Challenge
Giving our client certainty around expanding into another sector
The Challenge
Our challenge was to validate Bespoke Mentoring’s strategy to extend their impactful mentoring support services into professional football clubs, helping elite athletes address mental wellbeing and career transition challenges as they move beyond the pitch.
The Outcome
Instead of building a solution, we had to understand whether there was a need for mental health support services in football. We used our insight team and assembled a panel of over 30 ex-professional international and domestic Premier League players to assess the wellbeing needs of playing and transitioning out of sport. Our insights highlighted critical gaps in player support systems substantiating the need for Bespoke Mentoring’s services.
The Detail
We validated Bespoke Mentoring’s assumptions about whether to enter into the market of professional sports by recruiting a panel of over 30 International, Premier League, League 1, and League 2 ex-professional female and male players from clubs including West Ham, Manchester United, Fulham, Norwich, Stoke, Sunderland and more.
Our insights revealed systemic gaps in player wellbeing, such as there being only one player wellbeing manager is typically assigned to an entire club, from U7s to the professional first team.
The majority of players felt unsupported upon retirement, with one ex-Premier League player stating that upon playing his last game he felt isolated and that he had no support at all which left him feeling that his life was over.
There was a chronic lack of mental health support from clubs, with another player stating that absolutely nothing was given in support by the club—mentally or physically—just a handshake and a thank you for the professionalism and effort .
Football clubs have been very receptive to the insights we have gathered, and we are now trialling Bespoke mentoring’s support services to support player wellbeing with three Premier League clubs to improve performance on the pitch, and player wellbeing beyond the pitch.
EXPLORE MORE PROJECTS
”We were absolutely blown away by the insight. We are a mentoring organisation looking to move into another sector, and the insights validated our assumptions. Brilliant.
Chris PowellMD - Bespoke Mentoring
Empowering Innovation at
