League Football Education
A digital and multi-platform feast
League Football Education is a partnership between The Football League and The Professional Footballers’ Association responsible for managing the Apprenticeship programme across 76 professional football clubs engaging in excess of 1100 16-18 year-old footballers.
It is the biggest Apprenticeship scheme across all sports and is funded by The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) in England, The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) and via funding from Football.
The challenge
In 2006, LFE developed a communications strategy designed to place their business at the heart of the technological revolution that engaged the youth culture on whom so much of their focus is centred namely to:
- Promote trust and confidence with stakeholders
- Allow effective 360% communication with stakeholders
- Develop an effective support structure for Apprentices
- Develop electronic communications to provide information remotely
- To strengthen the LFE’s image, brand and increase public awareness of its services
The solution
Combining research of current web trends impacting on the youth market and a client focused approach Webpraxis were able to help LFE make the transition from the initial concept to final product in a few simple steps.
lfe.org.uk incorporates video management, news, blogs, a bespoke jobs management and application system, complete site content management including Youth Alliance and Academy league management system, as well as social media integration with Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.
Visually the site has transformed from its previously rigid condition to an expressive and exciting landscape which is still able to reinforce LFE’s deep rooted links to government funding and its parent bodies The Football League and The PFA.
The result
Website traffic has quadrupled since the launch of the new site with the Academy & Goal of the month competition, exclusive to LFE regularly receiving over 3000 visitors a day. LFE is now the authority for Academy and Youth Alliance news results, and league tables.
The site has also transformed how LFE communicate with their stakeholders allowing them access to related information and news.
Moving forward
WebPraxis provide ongoing support, maintenance and consultancy for LFE. We also help LFE promote and market other Apprentice based events that they sponsor and run with their strategic partners.
What the client said
“Our relationship with Webpraxis allowed us to launch our new site really quickly. We’ve worked with them for a number of years so their understanding of what we needed, when and how was a major advantage. We’re now in a position to offer a real digital and multi-platform feast to our audience and interact like never before with them.”
Steve Sutcliffe – LFE Communications Manager