Visa Programme To Help Women’s Players With Careers Post-football

Visa has launched a new development programme for women’s footballers, entitled The Second Half.

The scheme will seek to support the development of personal and professional skills for players and enable them to gain real business experience to help them progress in their future careers.

Announced in a blog post by Adrian Farina, Head of Marketing – Europe, Visa, the programme will help women’s footballers build their personal brand and will provide them with opportunities to receive mentoring from Visa employees as well as to participate in other work experience programmes.

In his post, Farina said: “We are often told by our female Team Visa footballers that their sporting careers are the most enriching and exciting period of their lives. They are driven by a deep-seated desire and passion to succeed, investing an incredible amount of time and working intensely hard to develop their skills.

“However, we are seeing that players are increasingly looking to create opportunities alongside football, to provide a platform for their future once their football career has come to an end.

“It’s well known that sport provides the tools and skills to set you up for success in business. Recent statistics reveal that nearly three-quarters of executive women say experience in sports can help accelerate a career and 74% of Fortune 500 female executives have played sport during their formative years.”

Inspired by our successful partnership with UEFA Women’s Football and the FIFA Women’s World Cup, we are committed to supporting and enabling female footballers to succeed in the workplace – whether that be during their football career or when they’ve retired and hung up their boots.”

Visa have also enlisted former England Lioness Karen Carney as well as current Arsenal captain and Team Visa footballer Kim Little to make sure that The Second Half offers the proper support to players who are considering their career beyond football.

Karen Carney, Visa Consultant, said: “I’m delighted to be working in partnership with Visa to help them create their player development programme, The Second Half. I’ve seen the passion and desire from the brand to support players both on and off the pitch and knew I had to be involved in how this should be created. I was very lucky to have a relatively smooth transition into my new career, but I’m aware that’s not the case for all players. That’s why I know this programme will benefit a lot of people and why it is so important.”

Kim Little, Team Visa footballer, said: “I’m very pleased to be part of Visa’s new programme, The Second Half. My whole life has been dedicated to sport so it’s going to be very different gaining some real business experience. My ambition is to learn a skill-set that will help me succeed off the pitch while also providing feedback to Visa and collaborating with Karen to ensure other female footballers can benefit.”