United Kingdom : Two students from India are looking forward to high-flying careers in sports management after studying the unique FIFA Masters degree in the UK.

The Masters, uniquely endorsed by the world football body, FIFA, is recognised as one of the world’s top graduate programmes in sports with its alumni going on to work in the world’s top sports organisations.

De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester, UK, is just one of three universities in the world involved in the postgraduate course and teaches the Humanities of Sport module from September to December each year.

The course is now in its tenth year and its patrons include sporting heroes Lord Sebastian Coe, Sepp Blatter and Sir Bobby Charlton. It specialises in developing all round managers who are able to cope with the increasingly complex world of sport.

The 260 graduates who have studied the course in the past have come from 70 different nations and now work for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), UEFA, Nike and Adidas, among other leading sports organisations around the world.

Two students from India are among the 30 students currently enrolled on the course. They are Rochak Langer, 27 from Ujjain, and former tennis player Tushaar Garg, 25, from New Delhi.

Rochak Langer who already has a Masters in Science from the University of Kentucky, USA, hopes to go on to work in development of sports in developing countries in Asia and Africa. Before starting the course he was a management trainee with Larsen & Toubro in Mumbai and a research assistant for the Centre of Robotics and Manufacturing in Lexington, USA.

He said: “The substantial insight into the history of different sports with guest speakers from different spheres of the sporting world and the very experienced staff have helped to make this course a personal, as well as academic achievement.”

Tushaar Garg previously graduated from Delhi University with a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons), and formerly worked in the Indian Premier League as a Business Development Manager with IMG, a global sports and media company.

His favourite aspect of the course was visiting prestigious sport locations such as Wimbledon and Lords.

Tushaar Garg said: “If you are looking to work in the global sport business you should definitely take up this course.”

The FIFA MA is run at DMU and two other European institutions: SDA Bocconi Business School in Italy; Universite de Neuchatel in Switzerland. It is overseen by the Swiss Centre International d’Etude du Sport (CIES).

The students will move to SDA Bocconi Business School in Milan, Italy in January for the Sports Management module before finally going onto Switzerland for the final Sports Law delivered by the Universite de Neuchatel.