Meet The Team: Daniel Nixon

In this series, we'll be introducing you to the great people who work at FIFPRO .

Tell us about yourself, what is your current role, and what’s your background?

Hi, I'm Dan, the Social Media Manager at FIFPRO. I was born and raised in the UK, with brief stints in Hong Kong and the US. I moved to Valencia in 2015, where I still live with my wife, and our one-year-old son.?

I’ve been fortunate to work in content creation and digital communications for the better part of a decade. Prior to joining FIFPRO just over three years ago, I was the social media lead at a sports marketing agency where I oversaw social strategy, management, and content creation for several professional footballers and sailing franchises.

A few little-known career facts about me: I volunteered for a year with the Youth Sport Trust , I once appeared on Sky Sports representing Badminton England , I worked for the Mayor of London , and I’ve founded two small businesses – one a kind of fitness bootcamp, the other a recreational sports league.

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What do you do at FIFPRO? What does an average week look like?

In a nutshell, I’m responsible for everything you see on any of FIFPRO’s social media channels. That starts and ends with strategy, and includes everything in-between: planning, campaigns, content creation, copywriting, publishing, stakeholder management, advertising, and reporting.

Those are the broad strokes, and every day I am dipping in and out of each area. It’s a bit cliché to say, but every day presents new challenges, and it’s something I enjoy about the role, the industry, and the organisation.

Content is typically prepared as far in advance as possible, so each day starts with a review of what is planned against what’s happening in football. Sometimes there’s a need to hold planned content and react to pressing issues, other times it’s a case of publishing what’s prepared and getting ready for what’s coming next.

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What are you aiming to achieve with the work you do?

There’s a lot we’re trying to achieve through social media, but I’ll answer this from my personal perspective.

I am very aware of the abuse directed at professional footballers who speak out on certain issues, whether it be workload, mental health, conditions, etc. I literally see it every day. No matter the issue, you see the same misinformed retorts fired back time after time. The one I see most commonly is: “footballers get paid enough, so stop complaining.”

What those people fail to understand is that not every professional footballer is the superstar they have in their mind. FIFPRO represents over 65,000 players worldwide, and even if we are talking about the very best of the best, they are still human and have their limits. Players aren’t robots, so maybe it’s time to retire that robot emoji next to ?? Haaland’s name.?

What am I trying to achieve? I’m trying to change minds, ultimately.

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Professionally, what are you excited about right now?

The growth of TikTok has forced other platforms to move away from the traditional model of social media that primarily showed you the content that your connections are posting and engaging with.

What does this mean? Highly engaging content now has a greater chance of being seen by a global audience, regardless of your status or follower count.

Does it lead to more carpet cleaning videos going viral? Yes. Does it make it harder for content creators to have their content seen? Absolutely. Has it levelled the playing field and given everyone a platform to have their message heard. Yep.

How can I make a serious, complicated, or niche topic engaging via clever creative? This is the challenge that motivates me every day.

If you could change one thing about football, what would it be?

Discrimination, in all its guises. Beliefs and behaviours based on stereotypes, fear, and ignorance manifest in football in so many different and harmful ways.

Football is a major part of most societies around the world. When a player is racially abused from the stands or online, it gives those who harbour such views agency to act upon them in their own lives outside of football.

If I could change one thing about football, it would be to educate minor offenders and remove consistently bad actors.

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What do you do to relax?

You can’t beat a good Netflix binge, right? I enjoy reading and listening to music. I go to watch Valencia play quite often, a few friends and I are season ticket holders, and it’s always a good day out. I like to stay active by playing basketball when I can, and I try to get to the gym at least once per week. “Relaxing” perhaps isn’t the first word that comes to mind with a one-year-old bouncing around 24/7, but I always love spending time with my family and friends, travelling, and getting back to England from time to time.

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How can people follow what you get up to??

Ironically, I’m not very active on my personal social media accounts. But you can find me on X and LinkedIn .