Today the APFA removed two unpaid internships added to our free to use jobs board shortly after they were posted.
We recently posted an in-depth piece around unpaid internships, where we committed to vetting them on a case-by-case basis. In an effort to be transparent with our site visitors, the reasoning for our decisions is as follows….
- The posting stated an ‘opportunity to travel to away games’ as a benefit. This is quite clearly a mandatory requirement to film games in a wide-angle. Choosing not to travel would almost certainly lead to pressure from the club and/or removal from the position.
- The posting suggested the intern would need to use their personal laptop.
- The posting suggested a major benefit of the position was being provided with training kit. In reality this is a uniform/mandatory attire at the training ground.
- There was no mention of constructive feedback, exposure to anything the intern would learn, help finding post-internship opportunities or any other form of tangible benefit.
In the opinion of the APFA, this posting was exploitative behavior on behalf of the club looking for free labour. An email was sent to the job-poster with an invite to discuss this in more detail, but we are yet to receive a reply.
