Twelve professional rugby players, first promotion of #SpainFirstFellowship

Comillas is part of this initiative that facilitates the employment of high-performance athletes after their careers

Two women engaging in a discussion at a public event, one speaking and the other listening attentively.

27 September 2024

The Royal Spanish Rugby Federation and the Supreme Council for Sports have celebrated the graduation of the 1st promotion of #SpainFirstFellowship, a pioneering initiative in the field of personal and professional development and labour transition of high-performance athletes. The members of the Spanish women's Rugby 7s team were the first to take part in this plan, which is committed to training and accompanying professional athletes by introducing them to the labour market and making their professional reinvention viable with the help of major business allies.

Comillas has played an important role in this first edition. Lucía Halty, director of the Chair in Innovation and Digital Health at the university is very satisfied with the results of this first edition. "It is a pleasure to help athlets to prepare their personal and professional lives after their sporting careers. Our mission has been to evaluate the impact of the programme on them and to create a psychological profile that has allowed them to better understand their strengths that will help them outside the professional world of rugby", she stresses.

José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, Secretary of State for Sport; Juan Carlos Martín, president of the Royal Spanish Rugby Federation, and Margarita Ortiz, designer of the programme and RFER director, received the first 12 "fellows" who have benefited from this initiative. In this first edition, the programme has already had 25% of successful cases of players who, thanks to it, have managed to effectively access the labour market.

"Being part of the #SpainFirstFellowship has helped us a lot," says Beatriz Domínguez Sánchez. "Not only has it put us in contact with great companies and facilitated our access to them, but it has also given us tools that make us feel much more confident when it comes to making this leap into the labour market. Thanks to Fellowship, I am working at Pfizer, a dream for a pharmacist".

The programme is developed in close collaboration with the Supreme Council for Sports and the participation of important partners from the professional and business world. In addition to Comillas, KPMG, Microsoft-Founderz, LinkedIn, LHH (Adecco Group), Fundación máshumano, Alumne LMS, Ágora News, 8Belts and the Pérez-Llorca law firm are also participating.