The FIFA Master retains its position as the top course in Europe and the fourth placed in the world in this year’s Postgraduate Rankings.
Operated by the International Center for Sport Studies (CIES) in Switzerland, the FIFA Master launched in 2000. During the year-long programme, a maximum cohort size of 32 candidates study across Europe at partner institutions De Montfort University in Leicester, SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan and the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland.
The course’s leaders place high value on interdisciplinary learning, centered on the fields of humanities, management and law. It aims to allow students to understand sport as an international phenomenon. The fact the course is spread across three separate universities is seen as key to achieving this.
During the course students must conduct original research and write a dissertation which bridges the three disciplines of the course – humanities, management and law. As a group exercise, it also aims to replicate the complexity of working in a team of international individuals from different backgrounds. The Academic Insight article below from graduate of the FIFA Master, Heather O’Keefe provides an example of the research that underpins these projects.
Across the three institutions, the number of full-time faculty working on the course amounts to 24, with many guest lecturers and industry speakers invited to contribute to learning across the curriculum. This past year, the course’s longest-serving member of staff, Professor Pierre Lanfranchi, retired after 22 years of service as a Scientific Committee member.
2022 was also significant in that those who completed the final months of the course virtually in 2020 were finally welcomed back to Switzerland for a week of special events and a belated graduation after this had been delayed due to the pandemic.
The last year also saw the course’s alumni association ratify a new Code of Conduct for its membership after a year-long project led by the FMA Good Governance and Ethics Task Force. The results from the survey shows the programme already scores close to 94 out of 100 for its Alumni Network.
Another area of strength suggested by this year’s data is the average salary earned by graduates from the 2019 class, with the course placing third globally for this metric at $94,181.
Moving forward, as per the UK government Quality Assurance Agency, the programme is entering its five-year external collaborative review, out of which a new phase of developments for the FIFA Master will evolve.
This article is part of the 2022 SportBusiness Postgraduate Rankings. To browse the entire report and view the overall tables, click here.