PIETERSEN OFFERING LIFE COACHING SKILLS TO PLAYERS
Former Bloemfontein Celtic CEO, Charley Pietersen, is on course to help professional footballers with their challenges in his new role.
Following his departure from Celtic, where he served as club CEO under the late founder and Life President of the side Dr Petrus Molemela, Pietersen studied Life Coaching with a view of helping professional footballers with their challenges.
“After leaving Bloemfontein Celtic after the 1999/00 season, I went to study Life Coaching. Currently, that’s what I do, I am a life coach. I understand the challenges of players as I was at Celtic for 30 years and saw it all,” said Pietersen.
“I would see players coming from rural areas and were not used to some of the things, including the salaries they were getting. For example, from all the players that died in car accidents, one has to look at how long they have had their driving licences and how long they had been driving. Those are some of the key things that have to be looked at.
“The limelight and a lot of money from salaries affect the players’ lives and careers. Some of them had never driven a car before they turned professional and some of the accidents are a result of that,” he added.
“I decided, because of my experience from being the PRO of Celtic, the club’s cashier and CEO, that I would do something to help the players. The biggest thing that destroys our players is fame. They don’t know how to deal with fame. The second thing is fear. For example, when a player gets dropped from the team and doesn’t know what to do, he will end up doing drugs because of depression in some instances. They need someone to talk to in the form of a life coach about those things and their handling of money,” Pietersen went on.
“We had a session with Wits the other day. It was an hour-long session where we spoke to players about certain things. Gavin (Hunt) allowed me to address his players and most of them came back to say, ‘What you guys spoke to us about was true, we don’t know how to handle certain situations.’ I am helping players either in a group as the team or as individuals,” he concluded.