"I hope I've got a long time left in football. But as a person, I'm always trying to learn and develop away from the pitch. I don't want to stop playing and then just sit around doing nothing," Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall said as the 2026 cohort of graduates from the PFA Business School gathered at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium. Taiwo Awoniyi, the Coventry striker, was there too, alongside former Chelsea defender Cesar Azpilicueta.

Dewsbury-Hall's study alongside Everton minutes

Dewsbury-Hall said the course interested him because he wanted to do it now rather than wait until he had finished playing. He also said that if an off-field opportunity comes up, the qualification could help him. Azpilicueta added that the point was not only about life after football, saying: "It's about becoming a better version of yourself in your football career as well."

The Everton midfielder has already played 5 Premier League matches this season and has also featured in 1 League Cup match, so this is not some token classroom exercise. He has been on the move between Merseyside and London, including a train journey down for the ceremony, and said he had studied on the team bus during away trips.

Awoniyi's third qualification

Awoniyi gives the evening a slightly different edge. "I've got a degree in business management and another diploma, so this is my third qualification," he said, and he tied that to a promise he made to his father if he played football.

He also spoke about the serious injury he suffered in May 2025, when he was placed in a medically induced coma after rupturing an intestine in a collision with a goalpost against Leicester City for Nottingham Forest. That background makes his insistence on study sound less like a hobby and more like part of how he has chosen to keep his career and identity broad. He also said: "Yes, football is our passion, but we are normal human beings as well and maybe that's something the world doesn't always see."

For a sport that still leans on lazy stereotypes about footballers, this was a neat reminder that some of them are already planning well beyond the pitch while still doing the job on it.

Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →