Awareness raising for young football athletes from Sporting Training Academy. Sporting Training Academy is a Sporting Clube de Portugal project  (with the partnership of IEFP – Instituto Profissional de Emprego e Formação Profissional), that have a vocational course with both educational (12th grade – mandatory schooling in Portugal) and professional (sports management) certification upon completion of the course, representing an alternative to formal school.

In the perspective of the moral duty to create responses that enable athletes to reconcile their studies with sport, without prejudice sports or school, Sporting Clube de Portugal created the Sporting Training Academy, whose aim is to promote the reconciliation of careers: school and sports. Sporting Training Academy is a partnership with the IEFP (Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional – Employment and Vocational Training Institute), which allows Sporting Clube de Portugal to teach vocational courses with educational and professional certification, as an alternative to formal school education. These courses involve an integrated internship, to promote school education for Sporting Clube de Portugal athletes, for other athletes, and for the general public.

This project promotes the opportunity to study in the same place where they train, facilitating travel between the place of study/internship and the training location and creates the possibility for students to integrate the professional structure of Sporting Clube de Portugal, after finishing their school. Reconciling studies with sport is not easy, it requires a lot of determination, courage, personal demands and focuses. If the athlete does not have the right support and a balanced family structure, it is more difficult to stay focused on Dual Career.

Sporting Foundation considered pertinent to hold motivational workshops for these young people on 20th and 26st September. On this workshop where presented some real cases of athletes with and without success in the post-career, where discussed the main reasons that lead athletes to give up their studies and what strategies we can adopt to face demotivation and stay active in sport, school and life.
Once again the main focus of the workshop was the importation of the preparation.
An athlete who fails the preparation is prepared to fail, and the preparation is holistic: physical, mental, intellectual, social and affective. It was an interesting time, to discuss those themes and to listen the opinion of the young athletes.