Jack Sharkey

Jack Sharkey on Football Performance, Sport Science and Why Data Isn’t Enough

What does it really take to make sport science useful inside a football club?

In this episode, we sit down with Jack Sharkey, Director of Performance, to explore the reality of working in football performance across the professional game.

Jack’s career has taken him from Burton Albion, QPR and Aston Villa to international football with Australia and elite women’s football with Olympique Lyonnais. Across that journey, he has worked in League Two, League One, the Championship, the Premier League, major international tournaments, World Cup environments and Champions League football.

But this conversation is not just about career progression. It is about what sport science actually needs to become if it wants to matter inside football.

Jack reflects on coming out of university with academic knowledge, then quickly realising that the reality of football is very different. At Burton Albion, he learned that being a good practitioner is not about showing how much you know — it is about understanding what actually helps players, coaches and teams perform.

We discuss the importance of trust, communication, hierarchy and reliability inside football clubs, and why some of the most important performance lessons are not found in research papers or data dashboards, but in the daily realities of working with managers, players and staff.

Jack also shares lessons from working with managers and players across Burton, QPR and Aston Villa, including the role of standards, relationships, football politics and the challenge of supporting different player journeys.

The conversation then moves into Australia, World Cup football, Lyon, French football culture and the demands of leading a multidisciplinary performance department. Jack explains what he learned about communication, international staff groups, elite standards and the difference between collecting information and making useful decisions.

One of the central messages of the episode is clear: data is not enough. With GPS, AI, video, tracking, Power BI, dashboards and endless performance metrics, football has more information than ever. But unless practitioners can translate that information into the language of coaches and players, it risks becoming noise.

For sport scientists, coaches, analysts, psychologists, performance directors and anyone working in football, this is a conversation about keeping performance work connected to the game.

What you’ll take from this episode:
* The reality of working in football sport science
* Why lower-league experience can shape better practitioners
* Lessons from Burton Albion, QPR, Aston Villa, Australia and Lyon
* Why trust, communication and reliability matter in football clubs
* How standards are built inside high-performing environments
* Why data must be translated into football language
* The danger of specialists drifting away from the game
* How performance departments can support better decisions
* Why technology will not replace good communication
* What the future of football performance could look like

Want more? Visit the ISSPF Journal and grab your free soccer performance journal at www.ISSPF.com/journal.