This website uses cookies to improve your experience. Read our cookie policy

MSc

Advanced Performance Football Coaching

Delivered by experts in the field, including Premier League and International level coaches and support staff, the course offers access to rarely-shared knowledge, and will enhance your employability and professional development.

How to apply Book an Open Evening Chat to Us

Key Course Details

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Pontypridd

  • Campus Code

    A

Fees

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Pontypridd

  • Campus Code

    A

Fees

  • Home students

    £1,200*

  • Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.

Designed with external partners, including the Football Association of Wales and Swansea City Football Club, the Masters in Advanced Performance Football Coaching provides the optimal combination of professional and evidenced-based academic training for coaches, heads of coaching, performance analysts, fitness coaches and all those associated with performance player pathways.

DESIGNED FOR

Graduates wishing to progress onto studying Level 7 qualification. This course also attracts those already working in the industry who do not have any recognised qualification, for example, coaches, head of academy, head of coaching and performance analysts.

Career Paths

  • Senior Coaches
  • Academy Directors and Coaches
  • Academy Managers
  • Performance Analysis
  • Head of Player Development

Skills taught

  • Communication and Interpersonal Skills
  • Leadership
  • Innovation
  • Project Management
  • Digital Literacy

We make a difference in practice, not just on paper. Our courses are designed by people who offer jobs - and taught by people who have real work experience.

video-course-msc-advanced-football.png
A group of students overlooking a tactics board.
Students watching a replay of a game on a screen then discussing tatics.
A group of students practising game strategy at the USW sports park.
A football match is taking place on the indoor pitch at USW Sport Park.

Course Highlights

Flexible Learning

The course will offer some modules that will be delivered via block delivery or with some weekly content (online), to make the course more accessible to those who are working full-time in the industry.

UEFA A Licence

Only Masters with integrated UEFA A Licence (12 students only)

FAW partnership

This allows you to attend the FAW Conferences, workshops by FAW staff in all areas of the game, International matches and much more.

Cutting edge research

The course Is informed by cutting edge research and practice, specifically with research conducted by members of staff at USW and through the USW Sport Health and Exercise Research Group and the Centre for Football Research in Wales.

Module Overview

You will develop an in-depth advanced analysis of pertinent issues relating to football coaching and performance and develop a critical appreciation of the role of the modern-day football coach and how their practice impacts upon the football environment.

Pedagogy in Football
The module aims to appraise traditional and contemporary learning theory and apply such information to a variety of football settings and landscapes.

The Football Coach as Psychologist
This module will focus on the coach’s role in developing the psychological aspects of their players’ performance as well as how they must personally consider and develop their own psychological states that facilitate personal and professional functioning.

Curriculum Design and Contemporary Approaches to Player Development
With player development being an ever more debated topic, this module aims to appraise a variety of approaches to both training and playing curriculum design, whilst also appraising contemporary approaches to development.

Advanced Coaching Practice (UEFA A)
Develop a critical understanding of the role, scope and value of the coaching process and the application of key coaching principles.  Spaces for this module will be limited (12 maximum) through an application process.

Effective Coaching
You will develop an advanced understanding of critical self-reflective skills through the use of video analysis, which includes identifying key coaching styles, behaviours and feedback techniques required in advanced coaching situations

Leading People in Sport
Explore the nature of leadership and the wide-ranging organisational factors that impact on leadership approaches.

Periodisation in Football: Performance and Player Development
This module respects how scheduling and specific approaches to periodisation can be applied to ensure effective transition of a player throughout a player development programme. 

Analysis of Performance and Tactical Insights
This module aims to provide students with the skills required to analyse football practice by developing a refined understanding of tactical approaches both developing game intelligence and informed football recruitment.

Research Process
Recognise and critically interpret the strengths and limitations of the different quantitative and qualitative research designs used in sport and exercise research. 

Research Project
This module aims to enable students to demonstrate the skills necessary to produce a scholarly, in-depth, empirical research study, resource, or report. 

Course Highlights

How you’ll learn

The course in structured to work in sync with those already working within the football industry so the Lectures are block delivery (module covered in a single three-day block, Monday to Wednesday, 9-5pm). Students are allocated a personal tutor to offer academic and pastoral support. Tutorials are offered in person whilst on residential or via video conferencing when studying from distance.

This football coaching course is based around ‘reality-based’ assessments, i.e. assessments that are linked to the skills and demands of the football industry. This ethos not only ensures an applied approach to assessment but further refines the student skill-set. 

Students will be assessed via essays, but also via oral presentation; video analysis; reflective portfolios; practical coaching sessions; opposition analysis reports and player profiling to name a few.

Teaching Staff

Your studies will be underpinned by the latest research undertaken by the University’s Sport, Health and Exercise Science Research Group which collaborates locally, nationally and internationally with partners from industry and academia to provide world-leading knowledge and impact. For you, this means you will be taught by academics who are at the forefront of their specialist field. 

Mel Tuckwell , Course Leader
Professor Brendan Cropley
Lee Baldock
Ioan Paval
Grant Kalahar
Dr David Adams, Consultant
Tom Overton 

Facilities

Our full-size indoor 3G pitch is built to the Fifa Pro standard and World Rugby 22 standard. We are the only university in England and Wales to offer this facility. 

You'll also find a notational analysis suite and over 30 acres of playing fields, including five floodlit pitches. We have a sand-dressed 'astroturf' pitch, as well as a full-size FIFA approved 3G pitch. In addition to these all-weather pitches, there are six grass football pitches, three grass rugby pitches, and a large changing pavilion.

Careers and Employability

Graduate Careers

The need for relevant further education for football professionals continues to increase given the highly competitive nature of the industry with hundreds applying for a handful of jobs. 

Current professionals and new applicants are therefore keen to gain a competitive edge over others for promotion, with postgraduate qualifications providing one such advantage. 

The Advanced Performance Football Coaching masters is focused upon students acquiring the knowledge and employability skills to gain employment within the sector with the aim of progressing into management roles. USW Sport has a strong track record of creating employable graduates within the sports industry and beyond.  

Graduates could also progress to a sport PhD or sport research degree.

Possible career paths

This football coaching masters provides advanced coaching skills and knowledge which prepares students to excel in the following roles: 

  • Academy coaches
  • Senior coaches
  • Head of coaching
  • Head of player development
  • Coach educators
  • Academy managers
  • Analysts and recruiters
  • Technical directors

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Typical qualification requirements:

Upper Second Class sports related Degree or related industry experience.

Applicants must hold a valid UEFA B License or equivalent qualification. (E.g., NSCAA, AFC).

 

International applications welcomed:

We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.

English language requirements

International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 72 overall and a minimum of 18 in reading, 17 in listening, 20 in speaking and 17 in writing or equivalent.

Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.

If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.

If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.

Contextual offers

We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.

USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.

 

Fees and Funding

UK Part-time Fee

£1,200

per 20 credits*

Further Information

Full-time fees are per course and £10,250 for home students, and £16,000 for international students.

Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).

*Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.

Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy.  We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.

 

Fees and Funding Scholarships and Busaries Alumni Discount

We're here to help

Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.

 

Additional Costs

As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.

Students will have to fund the cost of travel to the residential elements of this course.

University Quality Assurance

At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.

If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.

Studying at USW

Our courses are designed with industry leaders and provide the practical skills and experiences industry demands. Our flexible courses reflect the need for life-long learning. If you value education in practice, not just in theory, then USW is for you.

Two people studying together at a table, surrounded by books and papers.
Postgraduate fees and funding
Exterior shot of USW's Sport Park
Pontypridd Campus, Sport Park
A member of staff is smiling and chatting with an open evening visitor.
Postgraduate Open Events

How to apply

There is an online application process for this course. Please choose the application form for your preferred start date and mode of study (i.e. full-time or part-time).

International admissions

Please see our international admissions advice for further information about how to apply as a prospective international student.

Related Courses

Sport, Health and Exercise Science - MSc Learn more
Sports Coaching and Performance - MSc Learn more

Next Steps

How to Apply
Book an Open Evening
Chat to Us