Football CV: Template, Examples & Writing Guide

When you think of how the best players in the Premier League got to where they are—

A killer football player CV isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

Look at the coaches on the sidelines, and a football coach CV seems less unlikely. Your gut feeling isn’t bad, but you’re not applying to a Premier League club.

Whether a coach or a player, you need a football CV.

This guide will show you: 

• A football CV template better than 9 out of 10 of those out there.
• How to write a football CV that will land you more interviews or have scouts showing up to your next game.
• Tips and examples of how to put skills and achievements on a football CV.
• How to describe your experience on a CV for football players or coaches to get into any club you want.

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Sample CV made with our builder—See more CV examples and create your CV here.

Looking for more CV examples and proven CV-writing advice? See some of our related posts:

• Athlete CV Example
• Coaching CV Example
• Personal Trainer CV Example
• Consultant CV Example
• Model CV Example
• Internship CV Example
• Fashion CV Example
• Teacher CV Example
• School Leaver CV Example
• Career Change CV Example
• CV Examples for Every Job

Let’s take a look at a job-winning football CV example: 

Football CV template—Football coach CV

Now here’s how to write your football CV, step by step:

1. Get your football CV template in the right formation

You see players wandering onto the field willy-nilly and putting themselves any old where, you know something’s wrong. It’s no different with a football CV. There are many football CV layouts you could use, but the basic format is well established.

The best CV templates all use the reverse-chronological format. This means they include a CV header with your contact details, a CV summary or objective, and work or playing history, education, skills, and two or three “extra” sections.

Anything that happens on a timeline (your work or playing history, education, and awards and accolades, for example) is listed from most recent to least. It’s the most recent stuff that’s most important, so it gets pride of place.

Make each section stand out by giving it a clear subheading, surrounded by plenty of white space. The best length for a CV is one page, unless you’ve got 20+ years’ experience—in which case try to keep it to two pages. Do this without dropping line spacing below 1.15x, font size below 11 points or margins below 2.5 cm.

Go with a professional-looking CV font. Calibri or Arial in 11–12 pt is a safe bet, as is anything that doesn’t draw attention to itself. Make your name and any subheadings a little larger and bold.

Once you’re done and ready to click send (or even print), save your football CV in PDF format. PDF files display and print better on a wider range of devices than something like *.docx. There’s one exception to this: are you responding to a call-out or job advert? Always go with what they require.

The reason is that many clubs and employers use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATSs) to sort the wheat from the chaff and organise large numbers of applications. Some ATSs can’t handle PDF files. So default to PDF unless you’ve been asked for something else.

Here’s a useful trick: don’t try to write your football CV from top to bottom. You’ll bounce right off the goal post of writing a summary or objective.

So feint around that for now and start with your work experience or playing history.

Read more about CV formatting: CV Format: Best Examples for Job Hunting Success

2. Start your football CV with a work experience or playing section

Your work experience section (or playing history) is the most important part of your football CV. It’s easy to do badly, but takes only a little more effort to do really well. So take the time to do it right, because you know your competition will.

Start by creating a subheading for your current and each previous role. List your role, the club or employer, and the dates you worked or played there. Put “present” for the end date for your current position. Put all these subheadings in reverse-chronological order.

Add up to six bullet points under each subheading. Here’s where you can stand out and get ahead. Fill these bullet points with achievements rather than duties and responsibilities. Achievements carry a lot more weight with scouts, coaches, recruiters, and hiring managers.

Start each bullet point with a strong verb like “organised”, “led” or “evaluated”. Quantify everything you can—this means putting numbers to your achievements wherever possible.

Football CV examples—Work history section

Which one do you find more impressive?

They both describe the same candidate, with the same work history, applying for the same job.

But what if you’re writing a football player CV? Achievements are just as important in a footballer CV. Here’s an example of what’s possible:

Football player CV example—Playing history

Don’t have this kind of work or playing history under your belt? Writing a football CV with very little or no experience? There’s still plenty you can do to impress.

If you’re a coach, list any volunteer or prac work you’ve done, as well as any coaching assistant work. List any other jobs that show coaching skills like leadership, training, and organisation in action.

For a football player CV with no experience, list your university or high school playing history.

Read more: Student CV: Guide with Examples

When making a CV in our builder, drag & drop bullet points, skills, and auto-fill the boring stuff. Spell check? Check. Start building a professional CV template here for free.

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When you’re done, Zety’s CV builder will score your CV and tell you exactly how to make it better.

3. Field your education (It’s more important than You think!)

Too often footballers and coaches overlook the education section of their football CV. Football is such a results-based game that this attitude makes a lot of sense. That doesn’t make it any less wrong-headed, though.

There are many pathways to becoming a football coach and not all of them require a formal education. This is even more true of becoming a football professional. No matter how you got to where you are, make sure your education section is up to the task.

Include only your highest level of education if you’ve got a tertiary qualification and at least a year’s worth of experience. Otherwise, include your secondary education.

Bolster your education section with bullet points that speak to your specialisation or areas of interest and academic performance. Include your GCSE range (e.g. 9 GCSEs, grades B–C) or honours level, but don’t list individual grades.

Light on relevant experience? Extend your education section even further by including coursework, awards, and extracurricular activities. Skip these bullet points entirely if you’ve got two or more years of relevant experience.

Football CV example—Education section

Read more: CV Education Section: Examples & How to Include It

4. Showcase your skills in your football CV

Whether a coach or a player, your skills are what matter most. The reason the skills section of your football CV is trumped by your work or playing history is that it’s easy to list all kinds of skills, but achievements show your skills in action.

So listing every great-sounding skill that comes to mind isn’t a winning game plan. There is a way you can use this section to your advantage, though.

The trick is to keep your skills section short and laser-focused on the requirements. Here’s how you can do this for every new application with a minimum of fuss.

First, create a master list of your football or football coaching skills. List everything that comes to mind. Save this file and update it as your skills develop.

If you’re responding to a call-out or job advert, look over the requirements for key skills. Find those or the equivalent skills in your master list and copy 5–10 of them across to your football CV.

Aim to match the wording used in the requirements. For example, if they’re looking for a “team player” but you’ve got “teamwork” in your master list, then change it to “team player” in your CV. This helps with ATSs but it also makes it easier for your reader to see how great a fit you are.

Go back to your work experience or playing history section. Do your achievements show these skills in action? If not, then see if you can swap out some achievements with ones that back up your skills list.

These football CV skills lists will give you some idea of your options. Aim for a good mix of soft and hard skills.

Football CV soft skills

• Decision making
• Communication
• Leadership
• Teamwork
• Motivation
• Mentorship
• Interpersonal skills
• Adaptability
• Perceptiveness
• Time management

Football coach CV hard skills

• Performance evaluation
• Safety awareness
• Drilling techniques
• Developing tactics
• Schedule management

Football player CV hard skills

• Speed
• Endurance
• Agility
• Upper-body strength
• Explosive lower-body strength

Football CV sample—Skills for a football coach CV

Read more about adding skills to a CV: Key Skills for a CV: 99+ Examples With Expert Tips

5. Add “extra” sections to your football CV

Get an edge over your competition by adding “extra” sections to your football CV. “Extra” means things other than work or playing history, education, and skills. These sections, vital as they are, won’t capture everything that makes you who they’re looking for.

Add two or three sections that cover your courses, certifications, awards, relevant memberships or sporting achievements. For a footballer CV, include your measurements, preferred foot, any foreign languages you speak, even links to highlight reels.

Low on experience? Draw on any relevant volunteering you’ve done, academic awards you’ve received, and even relevant hobbies and interests. 

Football CV sample—Additional CV sections

Read more: CV Structure: Full Guide, Tips & Examples

6. Combine the best bits into a football CV objective or summary

You’ve done all the heavy lifting of writing a football CV. It’s time to circle back to the top and put together an attention-grabbing CV summary or objective. Think of this as a highlight reel on paper.

Got a year or more of experience? Go through your CV and pick out two or three of your most impressive and relevant achievements and skills. Think of an adjective that describes you as a player or coach—something like hard-working, dedicated or passionate.

Put everything together using this football CV template:

Adjective + Job Title + Years of Experience + Achievements + Skills + What You Want to Do for the Employer

Got less than a year’s worth of relevant experience? Then you’ll want to go with a football CV objective. Use the template above, but lean more heavily on your relevant skills and achievements, either from your school days or another sport.

These examples will give an idea of what to do and what to avoid:

Football CV examples—CV summary

The first example is concrete and backed up by numbers. It’s also focused on what the coach can do for their new employer, not what they expect to get out of the job for themselves.

Read more: What Does a Great CV Look Like?

7. Write a football cover letter to get past the goal posts

You know what it’s like to watch someone dribble, dodge, and weave up to the goal posts and miss point-blank. That’s exactly what it looks like when you prepare a great football CV and fail to include a cover letter.

Not everyone requires a cover letter, this is true. If you’ve been specifically asked not to include one, then by all means don’t. Otherwise, you never know. One thing’s for certain: there’s no harm in sending in a cover letter nobody reads, but it’s an own goal if they were expecting one and didn’t get it.

A cover letter turns your CV from spam or a flyer into a document with a backstory. Football clubs, agents, and scouts are all busy. You wouldn’t hand a stranger a document without saying a word—this is no different.

So use your football cover letter to floodlight your passion and parade your achievements. Keep it short and on-point. Make them keen to read your CV.

Read more: How to Write a Cover Letter for Any Application in 2022

Plus, a great cover letter that matches your CV will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:

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See more cover letter templates and start writing.

Key takeaways

Here’s how to write a football CV, step by step:

• Showcase your coaching or playing history, focusing on achievements.
• Get your education off the bench—it matters more than you think.
• March your skills onto the field, choose the best line-up for the job.
• Add extra sections to your football CV to get the edge over the competition.
• Make a highlights reel of your football CV—this’ll be your summary or objective.

Not such a huge deal when you take it one step in a time! Now it’s over to you:

• What were the biggest challenges in writing your football CV?

• What advice do you have for your fellow readers?

Let me know in the comments section. We can’t wait to read what you have to say!

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Sources

• https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/football-coach
• https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/sports-professional