Olofinjana helped into coaching by Sport Directorship Masters

My name is Oluwaseyi George Olofinjana, health former Wolves, capsule Stoke City, Hull City, Sheffield Wednesday and Cardiff City player in the United Kingdom as well as SK Brann and IK Start in Norway and Crown FC and Kwara United FC in Nigeria.

Born and raised in Lagos Nigeria some 36 years ago, like every kid, I had my education and kicked balls around the streets as well.

The competitive nature of the environment meant you had to study to get ahead in life, hence my original quest for academics.

I graduated from street football and secondary education to studying Chemical Engineering at university while still playing professional football and was lucky enough to be selected for the Nigerian national A team where I had the privilege of playing 56 times with some as captain in front of over 150million people.

I was then scouted by a Norwegian side – SK BRANN where I played for a season and a half before moving to England with Wolves.

Having obtained a B.Tech.Hons. in Chemical Engineering, I started my Masters degree programme in Project Management at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland with the view to broadening my managerial and leadership attributes to prepare for life after football.

Lack of premiership status meant I had to leave Wolves for Stoke City being managed at the time by Tony Pulis and quickly moved on to Hull City and stayed for 4 seasons though one in Cardiff on a season-long loan.

During the course of my travels, I had the privilege of learning under various managers and coaches with different leadership styles and I saw the benefits and short falls of most.

While doing all of this, I started a football school in Nigeria called IMPERIAL SOCCER ACADEMY (@imperialsoccer) with the view to first of all give back to the society that gave me so much as a kid in terms of life preparation and also to test my leadership qualities with the view to putting into practise all I have been learning and continue to learn over the years.

I quickly discovered the boys in the academy looked up to me so much – hence my surge for coaching education.

I have since then obtained both UEFA B and A licences with the PRO in view.

After finishing playing professional football, I felt it was time to start my full development within the sports industry as a leader but as with everything, the journey of a thousand miles starts with a step hence me attaching myself to Wolves under the tutelage of Kevin Thelwell to broaden my administrative and leadership skills as well as under the tutelage of Scott Sellars to help with football coaching and personal development.

It was at Wolves I got to know about the Sport Directorship Masters programme which suits perfectly for my continuous development as a leader and affords me the opportunity of getting an up to date academic insight into leading in a high-level sports environment while putting it into practise at Wolves.

I must emphasise how helpful the Sport Directorship course has been in terms of validating some of my already formed beliefs around leadership, leadership preparations – that cuts across all sport – and the invaluable knowledge sharing of gurus across different leadership sectors and colleagues.