Navid Dayyani was a promising young Danish football player when an injury abruptly ended his career. Making the decision to stop was tough for the young elite athlete but he made the decision to engage in entrepreneurship as his way out of the football world.
Back in 2003, Navid Dayyani was the youngest debutant in the history of the Danish Super League, when at the age of 16 years and 244 days he went on the field for AGF Aarhus. In 2006, he suffered an injury that affected his knee in a way that forced him to end his young career when he was declared football invalid.
“That it hurt so much helped relieve the pain in my head that I had to stop. But then I thought ‘why me?’, and it’s always hard to think about what it could have been.”
After the dream of a football career was over, Dayyani finished a Master’s degree in marketing with a focus on online marketing. He then went on to buy into BrandFix A/S (owning just under half of the business) and support the company in his area of expertise until very recently. Even though the past six years were filled with 60 hour-weeks and high levels of stress, Dayyani is already looking forward to new challenges in entrepreneurship.
Shifting focus
One of the main learning points for him was the realization that while he felt a lot of pain when his football career ended, it started fading when his focus shifted towards other priorities. After he had made the change to become self-employed and had children, football took up significantly less space in his life. Even though the club still has a place with him and he hopes that they are successful, he now feels fulfilled by other priorities.
AtLAS aims to help elite athletes like Navid Dayyani make the transition out of sports easier and transform their skills to the entrepreneurial world. If you are interested, do not hesitate to get in contact!
Source: https://www.bt.dk/superligaen/agf-talent-maatte-stoppe-som-20-aarig-nu-har-han-succes-i-anden-branche (translation from Danish)