Mental performance hires rise

Tottenham Hotspur is hiring a lead sport psychologist for its women’s first team, adding another public sign that elite clubs are building mental-performance work into daily football operations. (uksport.gov.uk) The full-time role, posted in April 2026 and based in Enfield, sits inside Tottenham Women’s sport science and medical team. The job description says the psychologist would deliver evidence-based support for individual and team performance, injury rehabilitation, return to play and communication under pressure. (uksport.gov.uk) Tottenham has used this kind of support before. In March 2021, the club said former Great Britain hockey captain Helen Richardson-Walsh had taken a part-time role as performance psychologist with Spurs Women after first visiting the squad in 2018. (tottenhamhotspur.com) Richardson-Walsh said her work covered individual sessions, squad work and team culture, and then-head coach Rehanne Skinner called her “a fantastic asset” to the staff team. Tottenham’s new listing places similar work more explicitly inside a wider multidisciplinary structure of coaches, nutritionists, medics, analysts and player support staff. (tottenhamhotspur.com, uksport.gov.uk) That setup matches the language sports governing bodies now use. International Olympic Committee guidelines published in October 2024 said major events should build mental-health measures into planning, and a 2025 consensus paper called for programmes covering promotion, prevention, treatment and recovery. (olympics.com, bjsm.bmj.com) The same 2025 paper said event organisers should provide in-person services from qualified mental-health professionals and track mental health alongside injury and illness surveillance. That language treats psychological care less as an add-on and more like another performance and welfare system. (bjsm.bmj.com) Football clubs are also advertising these roles more openly. Liverpool posted a Lead Academy Psychologist role in September 2025 that linked player support, parent education, injury monitoring and first-team transition inside its academy performance department. (liverpoolfc.com) Job ads show how the brief has widened. Tottenham’s 2026 listing asks for support on performance transitions and return-to-play, while Liverpool’s 2025 ad tied psychology to development plans for players from under-13s through under-21s. (uksport.gov.uk, liverpoolfc.com) The Football Association has also kept mental health and wellbeing in its guidance and campaign work, alongside its broader safeguarding framework. That gives clubs another reason to treat psychological support as part of player care rather than a separate service. (thefa.com, thefa.com) For now, Tottenham’s vacancy is one job posting. But the language around it — measurable impact, integrated staff work and support for pressure, injury and transition — looks much closer to how clubs already describe strength, conditioning and medical care. (uksport.gov.uk)