Within six months of captaining West Ham United's youth teams and playing in the Youth Cup, Iyiola Adebayo found himself delivering pizzas for Domino's. The defensive midfielder, who joined the academy at age eight, was tipped to follow in the footsteps of alumni like Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, and Declan Rice. He was awarded a scholarship ahead of his peers, but a dislocated shoulder derailed his progress. Despite appearances for the under-21s and under-23s, he was released at 16.
"They thought maybe being in a new environment and being in a new club might allow me to push on and thrive because I had been there for so long," Adebayo says. "It was a tough time, especially in terms of my identity. Because I've always been Iyiola that plays for West Ham." Desperate to find a club but not fully recovered from injuries, he attended trials at "probably 50-60% of what I was capable of" and struggled with rejection. "To have to go to parts of the country I've never been to before by myself, knowing I couldn't fully show myself, it was definitely challenging mentally for me," he adds. He recalls conversations with his mother and friends about his mental struggles, sometimes not wanting to be there.
The Premier League Futures programme
Adebayo started working part-time delivering pizzas to make ends meet. The former head of education at West Ham suggested attending the Premier League Futures programme, but Adebayo was reluctant. "I was still dealing with my release. Sometimes when you're in that phase you don't want to do anything that reminds you of that situation," he says. The Futures programme, launched in 2017, requires academies to provide a minimum three-year aftercare commitment for players released during the professional development phase (under-17 to under-21). It introduces potential career pathways beyond the pitch, including initiatives for under-16 players without a contract and a 12-month programme for current and former academy players aged 18 to 24.
For Adebayo, the programme has been life-changing. He is in the final year of a sponsored football business and marketing degree at the University Campus of Football Business. He also runs workshops for academy players on mental health and lifestyle choices on behalf of Sporting Chance, the charity founded by former Arsenal captain Tony Adams. Adebayo spotted the charity's stand at the Premier League youth development conference he attended as part of the Futures programme. "I went to speak to them when I was released because I felt quite a bit of anxiety around playing football and I did some counselling sessions with them," he explains. The workshops address "the pressures of being an academy player, whether that be peer pressure or the pressure to perform. Sometimes it's about the messenger as well as the message. I'm not that far removed from the experiences they're going through."
Broadening horizons beyond playing
The 23-year-old admits the Futures programme opened his eyes to potential career paths. "I thought you're either a coach, you're a player, maybe you're a kit man or a physio. But learning there's hundreds of roles where you can make loads of money and have fulfilling careers, I think I was ready to hear it and ready to take the opportunity," he says. According to Neil Saunders, the Premier League's director of football, who studied at the University of Bath after being released by Watford as a teenager, there has been increasing emphasis on encouraging those not offered professional deals to move into higher education or seek other jobs in the industry. "A relatively small number make it through to the first team, but we want every single young person that comes through the academy to be able to look back on their time positively," Saunders says. "Many of the boys will have spent a significant number of years in academies and will become experts in performance analysis or in strength conditioning and coaching. While there are a finite number of jobs as a professional player, we want to make sure we're equipping those young people with the opportunity to progress into roles beyond the pitch."
Adebayo is planning his next step. "I've learned so much, because I've been made aware of so much and improved my skill set so much," he says. "First, I probably want to work in player care and maybe after that I might want to go and work in the business or commercial side of sport. It's made me very optimistic that I can still be involved in sport and football, but in many different ways."
