FIFA Master Alumni - Where are they now? - Chiara Delsaut
Chiara Delsaut
Current Position: Medical & Performance Assistant at European Football Clubs (EFC)
Year of Graduation: 2024 (24th Edition)
Nationality: Belgian / Swiss
What does your current role involve?
Prior to joining the FIFA Master, I was working as a Performance and Menstrual Health Coach at Club YLA, the women's team of Club Brugge in Belgium. The role centred on tracking players' menstrual cycles to monitor their general health, manage potential injury risks and ultimately improve their on-pitch performance. At the time, I was one of the first in Belgium to hold such a role, and it is encouraging to see the topic gaining more traction now, with sports teams and sporting organisations increasingly taking female-specific health on board, not only menstrual health but other areas such as breast health and pelvic health as well. An important step in the right direction.
After completing my FIFA Master studies, I joined European Football Clubs (EFC) initially as a Football Intern and then progressed to my current role as a Medical and Performance Assistant, working within the Medical and Performance Unit (MPU). The role is broad and varied, covering everything from project coordination and research support to event planning and stakeholder communication. At its core, the work is about bridging the gap between evidence-based practice and the day-to-day reality of a club football, acting as a connector between clubs, experts, governing bodies and partners across the football medical and performance ecosystem.
Which aspects of the FIFA Master course have helped you most in your career?
The aspect of the FIFA Master that has helped me most is the breadth of content it offered. Coming from a sport and exercise medical sciences background, the programme complemented my existing expertise by giving me a solid understanding of areas I was less familiar with, particularly the history, management and law of sport. That wider overview of the sports ecosystem has proven genuinely useful in my day-to-day work. Equally valuable were the field visits to various sports organisations and the conversations with the people working within them, which brought that knowledge to life.
What advice would you give to future students?
Be curious, ask questions and make the most of every moment. The eleven months go by faster than you expect, so try to enjoy the experience of living across three different countries, visiting the various sports organisations and learning from people working at the heart of the industry.
And for any women considering the programme, my advice would be to just go for it. Women remain underrepresented within sports organisations and leadership, and the FIFA Master is a real opportunity to change that.
FIFA Master - International Master in Management, Law and Humanities of Sport, ranked Europe's No.1 course a record 13 times by SportBusiness.
Organised by CIES in cooperation with De Montfort University (UK), SDA Bocconi School of Management (Italy) and the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland).
"CIES, 30 years of impacting how sport is managed worldwide" & "FIFA Master, 25 years of Excellence in Sport Business Education"
