Look behind the veil at all-consuming player liaison role which has become a mainstay at our nation’s clubs

WHEN a footballer suffers an injury, the team’s physiotherapist treats them. When they are on the move to a new club, their agent takes care of most of the paperwork. Custom boots? There is a guy for that.

But what happens when they have no power in their flat, or problems with their car, or simply need advice on a non-footballing matter?

Whatever the issue, it is usually sorted out by the player liaison officer, which has become one of the most important roles at clubs up and down the country, even if many fans are largely unaware of the work going on behind the scenes at all hours of the day, and sometimes night.

Tracey Smith previously held the position at Hibernian, initially on a voluntary basis before being employed by the club, and now runs her own organisation, Player Care and Support Services, which is aimed at providing resources for players and clubs to assist in the various challenges throughout a professional football career. There is not much she hasn’t seen, or dealt with, in her line of work.

“A lot of it is the operational and admin side of things,” she explains. “Like getting visas which, since

Brexit, has been a bit of a pain. We did 13 one summer at Hibs so I learned quite a lot about visas and vignettes, which is the sticker that goes in your passport.

“It can be so complicated. If you’re in Australia, it has to go to the Philippines to get the vignette. If you’re in Cyprus, it goes to Germany; Portugal, it goes to Madrid. If you’ve got a player coming from Africa it can be even more complex because a lot of the passport offices are only open twice a week, so you have a limited window to get it all done.

“And then you’ve got the manager who wants to get the players in as quickly as possible so that adds to the pressure of getting it all done.”

The new priority system does make things easier in terms of signing new players from overseas, with fewer chances for red tape to hold up the process.

“But there is still a lot to be done in terms of paperwork and meetings, all to secure a player the legal right to live and work in the country. Accommodation is another area where player liaison officers earn their stripes – but it is not as straightforward as identifying an apartment and simply moving the player in.

“It might be that the club is paying for the accommodation, it might be the player depending on the terms of their contract, but it’s also about trying to find the right place for them.

“If they’re on their own it adds an extra layer of complexity; if they’re going home alone to an empty flat, is it in the right place? Do they feel isolated? Do they have people around them? All these things can have an effect on their mental health and well-being which then has a knock-on effect on how they perform on match days,” Smith adds.

“One of the big things is sourcing

a car for players so they can get to training and get about.

“But if they’re going to have a car, they need to have a bank account. So then it’s about trying to find a good bank that is perhaps happy to take care of things before the player has a National Insurance number, for example. Once they have their bank account they can get their wages, they can get a car, insurance, and all the off-pitch things like that.”

Player liaison can be, and often is, a 24/7 arrangement. Smith has had early starts and late nights, sometimes completely out of the blue.

“You’ve got to have boundaries,” she says. “But there are times, for example, when there will be no gas, no electricity, no running water, and the player has their family with them, so it’s about trying to find out when it’s going to be back on and if it’s a long time, trying to sort something out for them.

“These things tend to happen once in a blue moon, but it’s very much a 24/7 job because you never know what’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen, and how it’s going to happen. Sometimes there are early airport runs – I remember one occasion when I had to go to the airport at 2.30am, and I eventually got back home at 8pm. So it really is a round-the-clock role.”

While player liaison officers can often be called to deal with pretty much anything, Smith believes that there does come a point where the player needs to help themselves.

“Things like life skills – you want to help them but at the same time they’ve got to learn it for themselves. So it’s okay to help them but you need to show them how to do things for themselves that they need.”