José Fontes

I am currently in my second consecutive season at Boavista FC in Porto, Portugal, where I am an Assistant Manager to the first team coach on the professional teams technical staff. My responsibilities include planning and assisting in carrying out training for the first team, opposition analysis, translation (Portuguese, English and Spanish) at matches and in training sessions to our non Portuguese speaking players, talent prospecting and scouting, negotiation of players transfers with agents and other clubs and managing the clubs relationships with players’ agents.

Prior to dedicating myself fulltime to football, I spent four and a half years as an Investment Banker, working at Credit Suisse, UBS and more recently Imperial Capital in London. My decision to resign from the industry and dedicate myself to football coaching had nothing of spontaneity.  Having gathered the work ethic, discipline, team working capabilities, nurturing the ability to work under vast amounts of pressure to achieve results whilst surviving in the financial markets during the severest crisis the industry has experienced to date, I firmly believe I now find myself in a strong position to align these professional skills to my personal life experience, my linguistic capabilities and the passion I have for football in order to work towards my lifetime career ambition of becoming a successful football manager.

Working in Investment Banking was a strategic decision to finance my coaching education and achieve financial comfort in the initial phase of my career in football in Portugal, where the economic difficulties at the majority of clubs are no secret. Since confidently resigning from my job in banking, I have undergone work experience with Tim Sherwood at Tottenham Hotspur FC, having turned down the opportunity to stay at the club full time in order to commence my career in Portugal, and more recently completed my UEFA B license with the English FA.

Having spent the first 14 years of my life in Singapore, completing my secondary education in Portugal, my University degree in England and having worked in Madrid and London for two and two and a half years respectively, I feel that my vast international background has helped me to fine-tune my communication and consensus building skills, as I often needed to work with and present to multicultural groups and teams.

I firmly believe that this post graduate course will compliment my experience and vocation to date, and provide indispensible tools and learning resources to aid in the continuation of my journey in football. Having a background in Business Management and Economics, I am heavily motivated to further strengthen my knowledge base in football coaching in an academic environment