Profile
Dr Joel Rookwood is a lecturer in Sport Management and director of the Sport & Exercise Management degree at University College Dublin in Ireland. He has also been a visiting fellow in Sport Management and Marketing at the University of Vic – Central Catalunya in Spain since 2010.
Joel is also co-chair of the Football Collective, a global network of applied football researchers and practitioners. He currently writes for and produces creative content for Gløry magazine. He has produced numerous videos and documentaries amassing over 500,000 online views.
Joel was Head of Research at Aalborg Football Club in Denmark from 2023 to 2025. He has worked as a consultant for various organisations, such as the Arab Interior Ministers Council in Saudi Arabia in 2025 and FIFPRO in the Netherlands in 2024. Prior to that he worked for the World Academy of Sport and Federation University in Australia.
Joel previously held lecturing positions in British universities in Preston, Southampton, Liverpool and Leeds, and has given invited guest lectures in 20 countries. Joel has also worked at 25 sports mega-events in numerous capacities, including at the last six FIFA men’s World Cups.
Joel previously worked in sport performance. He worked as a soccer coach in North America, then as an analyst and coach for several professional football clubs and national teams in the UK. He has also worked extensively in sport-for-development, leading educational, peacebuilding initiatives across six continents.
Joel undertook a BSc in Science and Football and an MRes in Sport and Exercise Science, followed by an MSc in Sport Management. His PhD was awarded by the Football Industries Group of the University of Liverpool’s Management School and examined fan disorder and crowd management. He then completed a PGCLTHE postgraduate teaching qualification in 2008.
Joel’s research interests include sports mega-events, international relations and development, sports performance and recruitment, and sport media, areas in which he has published widely. Joel has written / edited six books and more than 50 peer-reviewed articles / chapters. He has also overseen over 100 dissertations and currently supervises three PhD students and three master’s students. Joel has an extensive array of global experiences and has travelled to 178 countries.
