Amsterdam, Netherlands

Football Behaviour Management

How does one become a scout? Or a technical director of a football club? There really isn’t a course you can take for that. That is what we want to change with our Football Behaviour Management (FBM) course.

The main idea is to combine relevant scientific theory with practical know-how of professionals working as scouts, technical directors or player agents. During the course you will find new talent, apply the relevant scientific theories to your findings and present the talent you find to the decision makers of the virtual club.

The scientific part of the course will consist of:

- Organizational Behavior Management (OBM). OBM is the most scientific way to bring the best out of people. OBM is targeted at work within organizations.

- Cybernetic Big Five Theory (CB5T). CB5T is the most scientific way of looking at personality. Again, CB5T is a great tool to make sure you deeply understand the people you work with.

- Triangulation. The Triangulation model of communication explains why you always need three points to understand anything. In terms of football: the player, the manager and the game itself.

- Viable System Model (VSM). VSM is a cybernetic approach to organizations. As we are already using cybernetics with CB5T it is only natural to also include VSM. VSM is the most scientific way to model an organization and hence also a football club.

- Subjective Bayesian statistics. A lot of decisions that you need to take as a scout or technical director are clouded with uncertainty. Bayesian statistics is the most scientific way of dealing with uncertainty.

Course leader

Marius Rietdijk

Target group

Anyone with an interest in the football side of running & developing a professional football club.

Course aim

Upon completion of this course students should be able to:

- Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of organisational behaviour to achieve excellent results within a professional football organisation.
- Explain how OBM and ABA can help change organisational behaviour
- Show familiarity with the ABC model and ABC analysis.
- Discuss the main concepts in OBM/ABA and how they can help improve performance.
- Apply the OBM protocol to real-life behaviour.
- Model a professional football organisation with VSM.
- Use VSM to diagnose and optimise a professional football organisation.
- Use CB5T to understand people's needs, desires and goals.
- Understand how people’s needs, desires and goals can help an organisation achieve its goals.

Credits info

3 EC
Contact Hours: 60

Fee info

EUR 1310: Tuition fees two-week course

VU Students/PhD candidates and employees of VU Amsterdam* or an Aurora Network Partner €735
Students at Partner Universities of VU Amsterdam €995
Students and PhD candidates at non-partner universities of VU Amsterdam €1100
Professionals €1310

Early Bird offer
Applications received before 15 March (14 March CET 23:59) receive €50 Early Bird discount!

Scholarships

VU Amsterdam Summer School offers two kinds of scholarships: the Equal Access Scholarship and the Photographer Scholarship. More information can be found on the VU Amsterdam Summer School website.