Player Support & Engagement Manager

The Player Support & Engagement Manager acts as the primary liaison between the Club, it’s First Team and Young Professional players, ensuring that players are fully supported on and off the pitch so they can focus entirely on performance. Operating across multiple departments, the role provides proactive, professional player care, resolving practical and personal matters quickly and discreetly, maintaining high standards of welfare, well-being, communication, and engagement throughout the player life cycle.

This is a position of trust, responsible for preventing issues escalating and ensuring a consistently positive experience for players aligned to the Club’s performance culture.

The Role:

Player Engagement & Experience

• Deliver a professional and welcoming onboarding experience for all new signings, loan players and trialists.
• Support players and their families with settling into the local area, including assisting sourcing and setting up housing, schooling, and key services.
• Build strong relationships with players to ensure they feel connected to the Club environment.
• Ensure players and families are aware of and connected to wider Club and Foundation culture and activities to create a strong sense of belonging and community.
• Support integration of B-Team and Academy players in their transition to 1 st team football environments and programs
• Support player appearances, fan engagement requests, signed items, and matchday ticket allocations.
• Coordinate team-building activities and engagement initiatives with coaching staff.
• Act as a trusted point of contact for day-to-day personal or practical support needs.

(Logistics, Travel, operational readiness)

• Coordinate and communicate all team travel arrangements, schedules, and logistics with players and wider football department
• Travel with the First Team where required to provide operational and welfare support.
• Support players in matchday scenarios (e.g., injuries, disciplinary situations, logistical issues).
• Provide practical support with transport where required (e.g., loan or trial players).

• Act as designated Safeguarding Officer for the football department ensuring that it maintains a strong safeguarding culture, ensuring safeguarding measures are in place and promptly flagging any concerns to the Safeguarding Team.
• Support in the development and integration of a holistic athlete well-being culture and program to guide Men’s, Women’s and Academy support services.
• Provide support to players with personal administrative matters such as banking, utilities, documentation, and travel requirements.
• Manage player accommodation arrangements where applicable, including regular check-ins and maintenance coordination.
• Manage approved suppliers and expenses, liaising with Finance to ensure timely processing.
• Maintain effective communication with internal departments to ensure player needs are met quickly.
• Proactively identify and resolve issues before escalation to coaching staff club executives

The Person:

Essential Experiences & Capabilities:

• Experience working in a player-facing, athlete support, football operations or comparable high-performance environment, providing hands on support to individuals
• Demonstrable experience providing day-to-day operational and personal support to individuals, ideally working within a multi-disciplinary support environment.
• Highly organised , proactive, adaptable and solutions focused approach with the confidence to take initiative and resolve issues independently.
• Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills, with proven ability tobuild trust quickly, act with integrity and discretion, handling sensitive matters professionally
• Exceptional organisational and planning skills, combined with a practical, hands-on approach
• Ability to calmly manage multiple priorities in a fast-moving and time pressured elite sporting environment.
• A flexible approach to working, including willingness to work evenings and weekends and to travel regularly with the First Team.
• Data and technology literate.

Desirable Qualifications, Experiences & Attributes:

• Education, accreditation or…