Vrije University - Summer graduate programs
Summer Course in Football Behaviour Management
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Summer Course
DURATION
2 weeks
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
20 Jul 2026
TUITION FEES
EUR 1,500 / per course *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* €938 - €1500 (fees for 2026)
Key Summary
In the Summer Course in Football Behaviour Management, the program is structured to create a virtual club experience, immersing participants as if they are actively working as scouts for the designated club.
In cooperation with FC Twente, we organize a course to help you learn how to recruit the right players for a professional football club. Although the recruitment strategy also works for other sports, during the course we focus on football (soccer).
Course Overview
- Attendance: In-person
- Course level: Beginner/Advanced Bachelor's & Master's
- English language requirement: B2 level or higher (equivalent to IELTS 6.5)
- Lecturers: Marius Rietdijk, Joost van der Leij
- Forms of tuition: lectures & work groups
- Forms of assessment: written scouting report for a player
- Credits: Equivalent to 3
- Contact hours: 48 hours
Anyone who has an interest in finding the right players, scouting them in all facets (live, video and data scouting), player recruitment and decision making in professional football clubs. What you learn also works in other sports. Yet, the focus is on football (soccer).
Last chance to apply!
While player recruitment is one of the most important aspects of running a club, it is also one of the least understood processes. For that reason, we look into five different sciences that support better decision-making in the recruitment of players. These five sciences are:
- Viable System Model. (VSM)
- Cybernetic Big Five Theory (Cb5T)
- Organizational Behaviour Management (OBM)
- Subjective Bayesian statistics
- Triangulation.
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Write a player scouting report
- Present a player to a decision-maker
- Build a Bayesian network model for data scouting
- Structure a club to protect her long-term interest
- Influence decision-makers to make good decisions.