- The Uruguayan centre-back completed two university courses and one of FIFPRO South America's educational diplomas
- They are offered free of charge to footballers in the region
- Kagelmacher talks about the importance of education and how studying helped him in his career
Gary Kagelmacher was instilled with the value of education from an early age. In his native Montevideo, his parents always encouraged him to study alongside his rise as a footballer with Danubio. Today, at the age of 36 and with a career that has taken him to Spain, Belgium and France, among other countries, Kagelmacher already has two university degrees and benefited from an additional course that allows him to plan for life after football with greater clarity.
There is no doubt that this is an important personal achievement for Kagelmacher: the first two posts on his Instagram account proudly show the diplomas certifying the completion of studies in sports management and scouting, in addition to the diploma in sports management, all achieved thanks to the free education organised by FIFPRO South America for footballers in the region.
"I hope to play football for many more years, but we have to be realistic: we have a biological age that at some point will tell us that we have to stop and mine is getting closer," the Universidad Catolica de Chile centre-back tells FIFPRO as he watches his 10-year-old daughter play hockey. "I want to prepare myself as much as possible and these are important tools for my future."
Argentinian Luciano Aued, a team-mate at UC, put Kagelmacher in touch with FIFPRO South America. "I wanted to start studying something and I asked Luciano if he was doing anything. He told me to talk to Jose Pablo [Burtovoy, Director of FIFPRO South America's Education Department]. The sports directorship course, which Luciano was doing, had already started but Jose Pablo told me he could give me a course in sports management. That's where I started."
After four months of intensive study, Kagelmacher got his first diploma. Then he became interested in sports directorship. "I found it very complete, practical, very clear in all the details: how a sports director works, how they think, how many hours they work... Things that we as players don't see because we go, they give us our clothes, tell us what to do and we go home. It made me want to do another one straight away."
So soon after, he started the scouting course. "Today I'm not sure if I want to go more into sports management or be a coach, and I want to prepare myself with all the tools I have. I think that analysing players, seeing exactly what a scout looks at, how they do it, what tools they use, is important knowledge for my future."
Education a gateway to a better career
Kagelmacher is an example of knowing how to use the value of study to further your career in football. At the age of 19 he was signed by Real Madrid Castilla. He spent three years with the Spanish giants' second team, even making his debut for Real Madrid in a La Liga match in 2009. In 2011 he went to play in Belgium.
"At school I had the opportunity to study English. That helped me in Belgium not to suffer so much from the adaptation period and to understand my team-mates and coach better."
The problem was that he did not speak or understand the official languages of the country (Dutch, French and German). "I thought that French, being a more widely used language, could open more doors for me. I was young, 22 years old, and in the free time I had, I signed up for a three-month intensive course.
"It was about 12 hours of French per week. Incredibly, after six months I went to Monaco and knowing the language again helped me to adapt faster, to be able to give press conferences in the local language, to talk to the coach. That's when I started to use that tool. Everywhere I went, I tried to do small courses in the languages that were spoken in that country. I didn't have a referent to do it, it was something very personal because I knew it would be good for me."
Eventually, and before knowing about the existence of FIFPRO South America's university degrees, he decided to take a course in sports nutrition. "Today there is a lot of competition in sport and I think that knowing all the details is fundamental. Everything about nutrition, rest, knowing our muscles, injuries or preventive work is good is vital because nowadays we footballers play until a much older age."
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Planning for life after football
Although the idea of hanging up his boots is not yet on his mind, Kagelmacher is clear that it is not far off and that by learning new skills today he is gaining precious time for life after football.
"I'm someone who wants to start something related to football as soon as possible when this is over. Everyone chooses their own way, but I don't want to take a sabbatical year to think about what to do. Or just start studying and preparing myself after retirement and lose two or three years. With the life we've always had, with the same routine we've had for years, I think it can be counterproductive to suddenly take it away from you and spend two years without doing any of it. So I'm preparing myself now, thinking that I don't have much time left in my career."
Despite the fact that many team-mates have become interested in the different FIFPRO South America courses by seeing his posts on Instagram or by casual chats they have had, there is also a universe of players who have doubts or are not yet attracted to undertake training.
"There are a lot of people who say they don't want it or don't need it, but without having tried it. I would tell them to try it because they will like it. Studying is a commitment to oneself, which has helped me a lot and made me want to do more. I want to keep learning. If there's one thing we footballers have done, it's play and know how to be in this world. So I think it's a good idea for us to take courses so that in the future we can be coaches, trainers, sports managers or whatever else is related to our environment."
