The news comes as employment relations minister Jo Swinson has been working to compile information on more than a hundred instances of companies overworking their unpaid interns. Employers break the law if they use unpaid interns to fill full-time positions that would be subject to national minimum wage rules.
The unpaid position at Reading FC is described as a performance analyst "to assist the senior performance analyst in providing performance feedback to the first team".
Wigan Athletic are also looking to recruit three performance analysts whose "main duties will include filming of games and training sessions, live and post-match coding, statistical analysis and video creation".
The adverts appeared on the website of UK Sport, the quango that will receive £500m in exchequer and lottery funding over the next four years to fund elite Olympic sport.
Gus Baker, co-founder of Intern Aware, an organisation that campaigns for paid internships, has called the internships "self-defeating as well as unfair and exploitative".
Baker said: "It's not about the amount of money in the company, it's about the culture and if there's a demand for young people to break in then it makes it worse. Sport is a good example. Companies are thinking 'why bother paying someone if you can get someone for free'. It's not only exploitative but it's exclusive. How much must it cost to work in Reading for a year for nothing? They are narrowing it down to a tiny group of people."
"It's a waste. They are advertising for people doing a real job analysing first team performance and feeding it back in. I don't know why they don't want to pay to get someone decent to do that job for them."
Reading FC said in a statement: "Many young people, however well qualified, find it very hard to obtain their first job because they do not have experience.
"Internships give these youngsters the opportunity to gain practical experience, thus enhancing their job prospects considerably. This season we received countless unsolicited applications for internships and formalising the process has been of great benefit to both sides."
