Former Scotland striker now turned media pundit Chris Iwelumo believes that his degree in Professional Sports Writing and Broadcasting could give him the edge as he looks to reach the top in football punditry.
Iwelumo, whose 18-year career as a professional player came to an end in 2014 has already worked for several broadcasters, including talkSPORT, since hanging-up his boots and is hoping that his recent graduation from Staffordshire University with a First-class honours degree from a course designed for PFA members, will give him an advantage over other players treading the same path towards the press box.
“When I first retired and tried to break into radio at talkSPORT I was told that eighty-seven ex professional footballers were trying to do the same thing,” he said.
“Now a lot of those will probably be bigger names or have played at a higher level, internationals players, so you have to do whatever you can to make yourself stand out from that crowd and I feel that having this behind me will help me in that world.”
Capped by Scotland on four occasions Iwelumo is the first to admit that transition and life changes provided some challenging times as the curtain came down on his playing career. However with the help of the PFA and others he is moving forward and better prepared to address the next stage of his life in punditry.
“I can only speak for myself and I’ve got to say, whenever I’ve needed The PFA for whatever reason – there’s been a lot of hard things I’ve been through towards the end of my career - The PFA were there,” he said.
“I met Ian Bayley, who was the course leader (at Staffordshire University), he was the head of media at Stoke City when I was there and I had a good relationship with him. I told him what I was doing with the likes of talkSPORT and Sky Sports and he said the course would be perfect for me.
“I enrolled the next day. I found it pretty straight-forward, I wouldn’t say I was good with computers, my laptop was the most expensive DVD player before I came onto the course.
“It’s all about preparation, you have to work very hard and make sure you know what you’re talking about. It’s how you express yourself and that is something that I feel has got better since I started this journey, there’s still a lot of improvement to come but the course has been massive for me being in that media circle. I’ve taken that full step and closed the door from the athletic and football side of things but talking about it is the next best thing.”
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