Travelling the world with sport – Sean Doyle

LLS offers all students the opportunity to travel the world with sports whilst achieving qualifications that can take you down different career pathways and provide you with many opportunities. Travelling with sports is a great choice for students and can be very exciting offering the chance to meet new people and experience different cultures. Different cultures provide our students with the chance to understand and learn different ways of performing and teaching sports. This opportunity can help students not only with personal growth but increasing employability.

Sean Doyle

LLS Graduate Sean Doyle started his sporting journey with LLS at aged 16. Since then, he has travelled to many different global destinations around the world and discovered new ways of teaching within different cultures. During his global trips he was able to take on challenging professional roles that he will carry with him into his career.

Can you tell us about your global coaching experiences?

My global journey started out in America in the providence region with Challenger Sports. I was here for a few months coaching grassroots football for kids aged between 6 up until the ages of 15 and this is where I stayed for the whole of the summer. I then came back and spent a year studying an apprenticeship. After this I travelled out to Helsinki Finland. Here I worked in Kissakallio an island in Finland working within a more professional environment. I worked with a football club called the Nupes and this is where I was teaching academy standard football sessions for different age groups throughout the club. This then led me onto my final journey out to Brisbane Australia working for a company called Aspire FA. There we ran primary and secondary school football and footsol based programmes. I was also then provided the chance to work for Lions Football Club where I was the mini-roo coordinator looking after teams all the way from ages 6 up to 14. Each age group had around five teams, so I was looking after all of the kids, all of the parents and all of the coaches. I made sure each of the coaches were performing at the correct standard and running the correct programme. I also worked for Inter Milan, here I got the chance to shadow some of the Inter Milan coaches but also to be a part of the Milan team that were based out in Australia.

Which destination did you favour and why?

My favourite place that I travelled to was Australia due to the opportunities I gained when there. I was able to take on such a high role within the second biggest team in Queensland behind Brisbane Roar FC in Lions. Being given this responsibility at the age of 21 was great. I was making sure that the coaches had the right qualifications who worked for the club and that the programmes put in place where being performed to the correct standard by the coaches. Not only this, but ensuring the kids were also enjoying the sessions. Being able to work for Inter Milan was a little bit different. As obviously a huge team based in Europe, being able to travel over to Australia and work for them there gave me a different dynamic of coaching. The way that the coaches acted and interacted with the kids was something that I was not used to, so it was good to take a step back and go from a lead role at Lions to more of a student-based role at Inter Milan.

We have our 2022 Global Coaching Conference event coming up in November. What advice would you offer to student who want to travel the world with sport?

There is going to be a lot of opportunities following the GCC event. At this event there will be many employers and high-end jobs to go and attain from the talks. I would tell students to go and speak to as many employers as possible even if you think that you may not be interested in the country. Go and speak to them and see what is on offer because it is better to have more options than to be looking around if you are looking to take on opportunities.

In the future What other global destinations would you like to travel to next for work?

Going forward I would still like the opportunity to travel out to Qatar out in the middle East. Obviously, the World Cup will be held there this year so this would be a good opportunity to travel out for. I would also like to travel to Sri Lanka for a short period of time. They have a very different way of life over there, to see the cultural differences between the countries I have already coached in and the way they coach would be something that I have never experienced.