UEFA · free preview
UEFA Certificate in Football Management
How a football organisation is run: strategy, operations, marketing, media, events, finance, law, leadership and HR.
€7,900 (about £6,700) · 9–10 months, blended · about 350 hours
Take the courseCreate a free accountCourse fee: £6,700 in-game · with Full AccessCourse fees are in-game money, paid from your in-game wallet — never real money.
Free lesson · The organisation of world football
The course you are on
The UEFA Certificate in Football Management (CFM) is the foundation management programme for people who run football off the pitch: staff of associations, clubs and leagues. You are taking it as a manager because every decision made above you — budgets, contracts, matchday rules, media duties — comes out of the machinery this course explains. Its 2,000+ graduates work across the game.
| Edition | Who it is for |
|---|---|
| National | Staff of an association, its clubs or leagues, nominated by the association: one candidate per association per year, plus one additional female candidate. |
| Open | One edition a year, starting in autumn, for people working in or connected to football; capped at 35 participants. |
| Players | Active professional players, coaches and referees; 100% online, starting each January. |
- Cost: €7,900, including materials, lunches and at least one dinner per seminar.
- Duration and format: 9–10 months, blended — e-learning modules plus three seminars — taught in English; about 350 learning hours, roughly four days of work per online module.
- Assessment: two written assignments, one of them a managerial analysis of a football organisation of your choice with recommendations for improvement, and a final oral exam based on an elective module.
- Award: a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Football Management worth 10 ECTS credits, issued with the University of Lausanne.
Source: Management & administration reference · 1. UEFA Certificate in Football Management
The syllabus: 10 modules, 37 lessons
- 1
The organisation of world football
- The course you are on free preview
- The pyramid and the chain of membership
- How the governing bodies work
- Stakeholders and the governance ideas behind them
- 2
Strategic and performance management
- Why football needs strategy — and the strategy stack
- The analysis toolkit and the strategy process
- KPIs and the balanced scorecard
- Governance that makes strategy stick
- 3
Operational management
- The planning cycle and running competitions
- Matchday as a checklist discipline
- Safety and security: the non-negotiables
- Facilities and service quality
- 4
Marketing and sponsorship
- Marketing basics, football-flavoured
- What football actually sells
- How a sponsorship is built
- Fan engagement, CRM and growing the game
- 5
Media and communication
- The comms team and the craft of media relations
- Owned and social media, and talking to your own people
- Crisis communication
- 6
Event and volunteer management
- The event lifecycle
- Tools of the trade
- Volunteers: the football workforce
- 7
Finance
- Reading a club’s numbers
- Budgeting for sporting uncertainty
- Financial sustainability rules
- Club licensing and funding an association
- 8
Football law
- Where football law comes from
- Contracts and contract stability
- Disciplinary systems
- The dispute map and integrity
- 9
Leadership and human resources
- Leadership styles in football
- The HR cycle — including volunteers
- People skills that decide outcomes
- 10
The managerial analysis method
- Frame, describe, analyse
- Diagnose and recommend
- Presenting and defending it
- A worked analysis