The City Football Leadership Institute joins BrandEd’s portfolio of education ventures including Sotheby’s Institute of Art, founded over fifty years ago with campuses in New York and London, and The School of The New York Times, operating since 2016 in New York and Washington D.C. In art, media, culture, and now sport, BrandEd partners with renowned companies to transition culturally relevant and intellectually rigorous brands into educational programmes.
Established in May 2013, City Football Group has total or partial ownership of 10 clubs in major cities across the world including Premier League Champions, Manchester City and MLS Champions New York City FC. With offices around the world, CFG also invests in other football related businesses and projects and serves as a global commercial platform for its partners, whilst fulfilling its vision of using football for social good on a local and global scale through its clubs’ charities, foundations and other CSR initiatives.
BrandEd’s educational expertise will combine with CFG’s industry knowledge to produce a rigorous educational environment with exclusive access to an innovative global sports business. CFG will support the Institute with executives as lecturers, providing real world industry insights, hosting students at CFG facilities, and exploring ways to work with students and alumni, whether through internships, mentoring, or career possibilities. Courses will be led by practitioners, CFG executives and luminaries from the sports world and beyond.
The inaugural programme will be a youth summer experience in July 2022, followed in autumn 2022 by an accelerator week for executives. Further executive education offerings will be announced in due course. These will establish two distinct and core audiences, with courses designed to impact and empower lives through education.
The first programme, named Next Gen, is aimed at teens aged 15-18 and is an immersive two-week introduction to the world of sport, with a focus on insight, inspiration, and self-reflection as a pathway for personal development at this key life stage. The second programme, the Executive Accelerator, is a week-long leadership programme for mid to senior-level professionals to power-up their careers through insight from time spent with CFG senior executives, examination of case studies across a variety of sport businesses, executive coaching, leadership training, and networking. Both programmes will take place in London and the Etihad Campus in Manchester.
Applications will open on March 14. Financial aid will be available for Next Gen students, with UK residents who meet widening participation criteria eligible to apply. Additionally, a minimum of five full scholarships will be made available within the Next Gen programme.
Jorgina Busquets, Managing Director, Football Education & Recreation at City Football Group, said: “Football is the world’s most loved, watched and played sport. At City Football Group, we have a strong track record in training players and coaches all over the world and we are delighted to extend that educational offering to the business of sport. The City Football Leadership Institute will help to train the next generation of talented young people and professionals who will be the future of our sport.
“In BrandEd, we have the perfect and experienced strategic partner to create courses and programmes which will help drive and inspire careers in sport.
“We are committed to ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to access and benefit from the CFLI. We are delighted to be offering both scholarships and financial assistance to ensure we can encourage applicants from all backgrounds to apply.”
Michael Chung, CEO of BrandEd, added:
“We are witnessing a massive disruption taking place in the education space where students are migrating towards compelling content and knowledge delivered by those that are practitioners and leaders in their respective industries. Sport is one of the greatest teaching platforms for leadership and to enable individuals to become expert in personal and external transformation, and to be prepared for the needs of an ever-changing world. “We believe that CFG is changing the game of football by building a truly global platform for football talent, media, and entertainment. “We are proud to be CFG’s partner and are excited to leverage the unmatched capabilities and reach of the company to develop innovative and compelling education programmes for a wide range of demographics from pre-university to seasoned executives.”
