"I am looking for a left-footed, fast and deep winger for the First Division. Reason: FutbolJobs"

Modern, industrialized football demands workers who feed it in all its facets, and word of mouth, offers from agents or the scouting network are no longer enough.. Not even artificial intelligence with its analysis programs that monitor players in the main leagues. There is a tool exported from the world of work that is beginning to be installed: the connection between supply and demand, between the professional who is looking for a job, or wants to improve it, and the team, club or even federation that needs to recruit personnel.

The headline of this article is not entirely a journalistic license to explain a phenomenon that grew up around modest football and that expands its scope to the professional categories.. Respond to a job offer on FutbolJobs, an online platform created in 2013 as the first active employment exchange for professions related exclusively to football. In 10 years, the company that was born in Orihuela (Alicante) directed by Valentín Botella Nicolás, has collected offers for players, coaches, physical trainers, physiotherapists or analysts from all over the world. Now, even from the First Division.

“We are looking for a midfielder (strong and physical) for a First Division club in Spain, a proven professional player in the division, with a community passport, option of free exit or loan, without agent or agencies”. This is an advertisement that has been active for 44 days and to which 384 candidates have applied. As in any job offer, the requirements are clear: “Profile on Transfermarkt (Minimum value 800,000 euros), experience in LaLiga (Preferable), European passport and active this season”. The salary, “according to the player's profile.”

But there is more. «They are looking for a left-footed, fast and deep winger for the First Division of Spain. Proven players with experience in the category, community passport, free of agents and with the option of free exit or loan». In this case, the requirement is a profile valued at one million euros and the salary is defined as “competitive”, for which 252 candidates are applying in an offer that is still open.

The last one is only a few hours old and already has around twenty applicants.. «Center forward for Spanish First Division club. Requirements: must be fast and strong, able to keep the ball, with experience and good statistics. Submit profile on Transfermarkt. Only for official agent of the player, we will not talk to third parties. The club has a transfer budget of up to 12 million and a salary of up to 750,000 euros per year.”.

This window did not exist in football until the birth of this platform, comparable to the well-known Infojobs or LinkedIn, and players from Third RFEF, Preferente or Regional have used it for years, to whom recognized coaches such as Lucas Alcaraz, with a long resume in the First and Second Division, Jon Errasti, former Éibar player now coach in the Villarreal youth team, and even a well-known Spanish international now on the bench. Professionals, many of whom do not allow their names to be given, find the tool useful, but clubs do too.. Before the First Division offers, those from some Second Division clubs also arrived, interested in collecting profiles of interesting players.. For representation agencies it is also a good recruitment weapon.. They also publish them to later serve profiles to the teams they work with.. More than 180,000 users from 160 countries use it.

«Our job consists of putting the person who wants to work in the world of football in agreement with the team or company that demands it.. “We are not agents nor do we charge for the transaction,” Botella assures ELMUNDO.. Its income comes from subscriptions, which are around 5,000 active today and, although access to FutbolJobs is free, to view the full content of the offer, initiate contact and respond with a resume or videos it is necessary to be a subscriber to one. of the packs.

The platform publishes an average of 10 offers a day from all over the world that pass its initial screening. Afterwards, everything is in the hands of its users and their only job is to track, if possible, whether what they call “a success story” has occurred.. That is, a match. “We estimate that we have had close to 2,000 success stories in these ten years and many are from professionals who have been chaining jobs that were offered or requested through us,” adds Botella Nicolás.

Three million for a complete coaching staff

If there are offers in Spain, where professional football is emerging strongly, they multiply. A tsunami was what unleashed an offer from Saudi Arabia for players because it offered $4,000 a month plus a house to play in its third division. But there is not only money for players. They also published an offer of three million euros for a complete coaching staff for a team, this time, First Division.

In the North American Major League Soccer (MLS), a “first coach” is sought for the Seattle Sounders reserve team, but classic markets also publish offers such as physical trainer for the West Ham academy or physiotherapists for Spartak Prague.

Reinforcements are also being sought for the offices, such as the Singapore Federation, which is trying to recruit a manager for the operational and administrative management of the centers where it hopes to develop its future talents.

Women's football does not escape, despite the fact that professionalization does not reach the same level nor does it move at the same speed in all countries.. In Germany they are looking for players for second division teams, but the Oceania Confederation has an active advertisement to find women's football directors to “manage and drive the development strategy of women's football, including participation, visibility, education, performance and culture.

FutbolJobs also completes its job offer with training opportunities offered through its collaboration agreements with entities such as Real Madrid, LaLiga, the RFEF or the Johan Cruyff Institute.. “It is possible that at the beginning it was seen as something strange in a professional world that connected through other means, but today I believe that a tool like ours is basic for those who intend to look for jobs in the world of football,” says the general director.. The ball industry has already taken another step.