Club ambassador Tore Andre Flo joined a host of guest speakers from the club at the Industry Insights event held at St Mary’s University, with topics of discussion focusing on jobs in the sporting sector that may be available to them when they leave further and higher education.

The Chelsea Foundation currently work closely with St Mary’s University and provides a coaching and development programme which gives students the opportunity to enhance their teaching and coaching practice.

The programme also allows students to develop their business and entrepreneurship skills while gaining an in-depth knowledge and understanding of football coaching and development.

Chelsea Foundation project officer Adrian Salisbury said: ‘The event was an opportunity for our 14 college academies to get some added value and to come into St Mary’s University to see what would be available to them if they were to continue their academic experience with Chelsea from their college programme through to the university programme.

‘The students will hopefully be exposed to the number of different careers there are in football and the different sub industries that there are within Chelsea specifically.

‘We had 12 guest speakers from the club ranging from the Foundation, tours, media, education to others so the main thing that the students will take from this event will be the exposure to the different careers paths that they can have in football, but also exposure to the pathway that they have with Chelsea.'

The Chelsea Foundation first started working with St Mary’s University, which is based in Twickenham, in 2015 and the partnership allows students to take advantage of learning at the club’s ground Stamford Bridge and its training ground in Cobham.

He added: ‘We have a unique collaboration with the club – we run our Chelsea degree programme and we are looking at how we might be able to incorporate elements of a Master’s programme with them.

‘We’ve got a strong relationship with the Foundation and we’ve also got a number of staff who work across both organisations that really strengthen that relationship. Our senior lecturer Michael Ayres is also an academy coach at Chelsea and that’s the same as Tom Howard who is also an academy coach at Chelsea, a lecturer on the course and also used to be a scholar at Chelsea so he’s come through that pathway.’

For more information on programmes available through Chelsea Foundation and St Mary’s University, contact [email protected] or [email protected]