SoccerexPro 10

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SoccerexPro (Print) - ISSN 2056-3604 Issue 10

Issue 10

www.soccerex.com | www.sportspromedia.com

FIGHTING BACK

The story of how the Copa América Centenario was saved CARLSBERG AND THE EURO 2016 SUMMER

FINDING A NEW GENERATION OF US PLAYERS

STADIUM AND VENUE TECHNOLOGY

INSIDE ISSUE 10 6

EDITOR’S LETTER

8

A WORD FROM THE CEO

10 THE BIG PICTURE - Football mourns Cruyff - Infantino wins Fifa presidency - Asian teams on World Cup march

16 BEYOND THE TOUCHLINE Spanish football’s top flight, LaLiga, is internationally renowned for its standard of play. Now, as its president Javier Tebas explains, the league is responding to changing markets and technological innovation to reach more fans than ever around the world.

18 FOOTBALL IN... COLOMBIA Colombia has often been overshadowed by neighbours Brazil and Argentina but it’s a fascinating football nation in its own right.

20 CHANGING THE STATE OF PLAY Play for Change is a charity that has now reached three continents and transformed the lives of thousands of children living in poverty. Later this year, it will embark on its most ambitious project ever. Director Marie Le Page tells the story of how the organisation started, and how it has grown since 2010.

22 THE BIG FIX This summer’s Copa América Centenário looked for all the world like a historic, once in a generation event when it was formally launched two years ago. Yet alleged corruption in the Americas pushed the tournament to the brink, leaving the organisers in a race against time. SOCCEREXPRO | 3

30 PART OF THE CLUB As part of the team that founded Major League Soccer in the 1990s, Kevin Payne was one of the executives who established football as a serious commercial force in North America. Now, the chief executive of grassroots organisation US Club Soccer hopes to help create an on-field game to match.

36 FANTASY SPORTS TAKES A GAMBLE ON FOOTBALL In late 2015, scandal hit the daily fantasy sports gaming industry, leaving its two biggest players, DraftKings and FanDuel, on choppy waters. As DraftKings’ Premier League launch sees it move into international territory for the first time, SoccerexPro takes a look at what the future holds for the beleaguered sector.

40 FULL PINT As a long-term sponsor of both the Uefa European Championship and the England national team, Carlsberg is set for a big summer. Paul Morris talks through the beer brand’s plans.

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44 FUTURE VIEW Technology is helping to change the nature of major sporting arenas, from the passive terraces of old to smart, adaptable, connected hubs which are active all the week around, not just on matchdays.

50 BEN THATCHER A veteran of several Premier League clubs, Ben Thatcher has been a player representative since 2010 and is now with M&C Saatchi Merlin.

54 ON TRACK Through its unique products, Trackchamp is bringing player tracking and live streaming to its partners lower down the footballing scale.

55 THE UPDATE - The Score: Football’s new Chinese empire? - Global news - Signings: football deals and appointments

70 REPLAY Kettering Town’s unlikely pioneers

EDITOR’S LETTER

TOTAL DEBT

I

t hardly seems fair, but for the second edition in a row I must use this column to mark the passing of a XQLTXHO\ LQĂ XHQWLDO IRRWEDOO Ă€ JXUH The death of Johan Cruyff, seemingly so sudden despite a long illness, felt like the kind of intrusion of reality from ZKLFK IRRWEDOO LV VR RIWHQ DQ HVFDSH Here was a man who had always seemed so vital and so present in the game that the thought of it going on without him seemed absurd – not least as he had met cancer with the same bullish VHOI FRQĂ€ GHQFH DV KH KDG DQ\WKLQJ HOVH And strangely, it was not until after he was gone that the sheer scale of his FRQWULEXWLRQ FRXOG EH VHHQ EHKLQG KLP As a player, and a manager, he had won honours – all of them, except, infamously, the Fifa World Cup winner’s medal he should have taken in West *HUPDQ\ LQ +H ZDV D PHPEHU RI great teams with Ajax, Barcelona and the Netherlands, and would make many an DOO WLPH ;, <HW VRPHKRZ WKDW GRHV QRW FRPH FORVH WR FRYHULQJ LW Here was a man for whom all the overused old standards – legend, LFRQ YLVLRQDU\ ² HPSKDWLFDOO\ DSSOLHG More than that, though, Cruyff was WUDQVFHQGHQW $PLG WKH HFKRLQJ JDVSV that greeted news of his demise, more

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR James Emmett EDITOR Eoin Connolly econnolly@sportspromedia.com

than one commentator made the comparison between him and David %RZLH 7KH OLQN EHWZHHQ WKH WZR PLJKW not have been drawn had timing and the details of their deaths, at similar ages from similar ailments, not been so close, EXW WKHUH LV VRPHWKLQJ LQ LW Cruyff changed the rules of what IRRWEDOO FRXOG EH +LV FRQWURO DQG KLV composure, his spatial awareness, would have made him a fabulous player all the same, but he exuded a sense that the game was about martialling endless possibilities – that a touch, or a pass, or a shot could be weighted just so, and suddenly there came something QHYHU VHHQ EHIRUH 7KHUH DUH WDQJLEOH examples of this – the turn, of course, and his two-man penalty with Jesper Olsen – but it is was as much about a state of mind, one that frees the world’s most imaginative stars to do the VSHFWDFXODU WRGD\ +LV OHJDF\ RII WKH À HOG LV DOPRVW DV LPPHDVXUDEOH $PRQJ HOLWH FRDFKHV he has the status of a prophet, who absorbed and then enhanced a style of play which others have adapted to take the sport to the most unexpected SODFHV %XW KH ZDV DOVR D À JXUH RI XQLPSHDFKDEOH FRRO +H VKRZHG WKDW D football manager could carry himself

PHOTOGRAPHIC AGENCIES Action Images Press Association MANAGING DIRECTOR Nick Meacham

ART DIRECTOR Daniel Brown CONTRIBUTORS Michael Long, Adam Nelson, George Dudley, Tom Lloyd

SOCCEREX

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGERS Jon Abraham, Bobby Hare, Charlie Barker

HEAD OF SALES David Clark

BUSINESS OPERATIONS MANAGER YĂŠwandĂŠ ArulĂŠba

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MARKETING DIRECTOR David Wright

GENERAL MANAGER Philip Gegan MARKETING EXECUTIVE Jamie Barr

with countercultural detachment; he talked deeply about the game as WKRXJK WKDW ZDV ZRUWKZKLOH )RRWEDOO now sustains analysis, business, and LQWHOOHFWXDO LQWHUURJDWLRQ DV QHYHU EHIRUH How many people have come to it who might otherwise have written it off as an infantile distraction? Over the past year, football has looked in on itself and has not often liked what LW¡V VHHQ ,W FDQ WDNH D ORVV WR UHPLQG \RX ZKDW \RX UHDOO\ KDYH Eoin Connolly Editor

SoccerexPro magazine is a joint venture between Soccerex and SportsPro Media. SportsPro Media Ltd 3rd Floor, America House, 2 America Square, London EC3N 2LU Tel: +44 (0) 207 549 3250 Email: info@sportspromedia.com Web: www.sportspromedia.com (SportsPro Media Ltd is part of the Henley Media Group Ltd www.henleymediagroup.com)

Soccerex Power Road Studios 114 Power Road London W4 5PY UK Tel: +44 (0) 208 742 7100 www.soccerex.com

SoccerexPro (Print) - ISSN 2056-3604 | SoccerexPro (Online) - ISSN 2056-3612 PRINTER: Buxton Press Limited NOTICE: SoccerexPro magazine is published quarterly. Printed in the EU. EDITORIAL COPYRIGHT: The contents of this magazine, both words and statistics, are strictly copyright and the intellectual property of SoccerexPro. Copying or reproduction may only be carried out with written permission of the publishers, which will normally not be withheld on payment of a fee. Article reprints: Most articles published in SoccerexPro magazine are available as reprints by prior arrangement from the publishers. Normal minimum print run for reprints is 400 copies, although larger and smaller runs are possible. Please contact us at: info@sportspromedia.com

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AVAYA STADIUM | MLS EARTHQUAKES

SPORTS + RECREATION + ENTERTAINMENT CONTACT Chris Lamberth | chris.lamberth@hok.com | +44 (0)20 7636 2006

A WORD FROM THE CEO

A SUMMER TO REMEMBER

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or this issue, I’d like to kick things off with a trivia question: “Which four former English internationals who played for Leicester City have been inducted into the Football Hall of Fame?” Well, I’m guessing most of you would have got Gordon Banks, Peter Shilton and Gary Lineker. Any ideas about the fourth? Well if anyone of you got Don Revie, give yourself a gold star! My father began his playing career with the Foxes and it was while at Leicester City that he met my mum – her uncle Johnny Duncan managed Leicester in the late 40s – so I guess I’ve got a lot to thank the club and the city for! At the time I write this Leicester are just three wins away from completing the most incredible of league triumphs and by the time you read this they may well be Barclays Premier League champions. In this most remarkable of seasons they have been the standout side and theirs has been a story that Hollywood’s best scriptwriters would have struggled to imagine. If they do achieve the conclusion their season deserves then it won’t be long before we see some of the current crop of players joining Dad, Gordon, Shilts and Gary in the Hall of Fame. It has been a momentous few months in the world of football. In February, we saw a new Fifa president elected as Uefa general secretary Gianni Infantino was voted in at Fifa’s elections in Zurich. I wish Gianni the best of luck in the new role and hope this can be a new dawn for the beleaguered organisation. In March, we received the sad news that Johan Cruyff had lost his battle with cancer. The Dutch football legend was a true visionary and his genius propelled the football of the great Holland, Ajax and Barcelona

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sides. When Holland beat England 2-0 at Wembley in 1977, Dad, England manager at the time, told me it was one of the best team performances he had ever seen and that Cruyff was simply unplayable that day. For me, he was the greatest player I have ever seen live, having never had the pleasure to see Pelé or Diego Maradona. Cruyff, I am sure, would have been very much looking forward to the exciting summer of international football that lies ahead, featuring the world’s greatest players from three different continents, even though sadly his own nation will not be taking part. Although the Netherlands did not make the Euros, the other ‘big guns’ are all still there, along with many of the smaller, emerging football nations, who will be determined to enjoy every minute of their tournament experience. In June, football fans will be able to enjoy the action from Uefa Euro 2016 in France and from the groundbreaking Copa América Centenario, with the expanded tournament taking place RXWVLGH 6RXWK $PHULFD IRU WKH À UVW WLPH in its centenary year. The tournament will take place in the US and the presence of global megastars like Lionel Messi, Neymar

and Luis Suárez is bound to capture the imagination of the local fans, and just imagine if the US national team perform well – the impact on the continued growth of the game stateside could be enormous. The staging of this historic tournament and the impact it will have across both continents will be one of the headline topics at the upcoming Soccerex Americas Forum, taking place in Mexico City in May. With VHQLRU À JXUHV DWWHQGLQJ IURP 0DMRU League Soccer, US Soccer, Concacaf, South American federations and a number of the different broadcasters and commercial partners involved, the HYHQW ZLOO VKLQH D VSRWOLJKW RQ WKH À QDO preparations for what I am sure will be an unforgettable competition. After this summer, Russia will host the next major global football tournament and we are delighted to also be welcoming Russia 2018 local organising committee chief executive Alexey Sorokin to the Forum to give an exclusive update on plans for the next Fifa World Cup. While the business of delivering these tournaments is immense, they should ultimately be judged on the quality of the football on the pitch and the legacy for the beautiful game that they leave around the world. Let’s hope they do Johan proud. Love & kisses, Duncan

Johan Cruyff was one of football’s global icons

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Peter Robinson/EMPICS Sport

Peter Robinson/EMPICS Sport

THE BIG PICTURE

2

FOOTBALL MOURNS CRUYFF

Manu Fernandez/AP/Press Association Images

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Neal Simpson/EMPICS Sport

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SOCCEREXPRO | 11

Matthias Schrader/AP/Press Association Images

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ohan Cruyff, widely regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time, died in Barcelona on 24th March. He was 68. His death came after a long battle with lung cancer. Born in Amsterdam, Cruyff began his career playing for an Ajax side that would win eight national titles and three consecutive European Cups. He and his teammates carried that success, and their ‘Total Football’ style to international level with the hitherto unheralded Netherlands. They reached the final of the 1974 Fifa World Cup (1), sweeping all before them before a shock 2-1 defeat to hosts West Germany in the final. By then, Cruyff had already moved on to Barcelona (2) in Spain. He would become perhaps the most influential foreign figure in the club’s history. As manager (3), he won the team’s first European title in 1992. He also developed a style and philosophy of play that is continued at La Masia, the academy he helped to establish. Tributes came in from the Netherlands, from Ajax, from Barcelona (4) and across the football world.

THE BIG PICTURE

INFANTINO WINS FIFA PRESIDENCY

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efa general secretary Gianni Infantino is the new president of world governing body Fifa after winning a vote in Zurich on 26th February. The 46-year-old Swiss, who joined the European confederation in 2000, put forward his candidacy to succeed Sepp Blatter only after Uefa president Michel Platini had been barred from the race. Platini and Blatter were both suspended over a disputed 2011 payment. Infantino secured 115 of 207 available votes in the second round of the ballot to see off the challenge of Bahrain’s Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa (1). Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan was third, with French former Fifa executive Jérôme Champagne (2) fourth. Tokyo Sexwale (3) withdrew before voting began. The victor marked his first day in office with a game of football at Fifa HQ (4) but with a package of reforms passed in Zurich and a US anti-corruption investigation ongoing, the work to restore the reputation of football governance would soon begin.

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SOCCEREXPRO | 13

THE BIG PICTURE

ASIAN TEAMS ON WORLD CUP MARCH

T

hailand celebrated one of the greatest achievements in their football history as they secured passage to the decisive third round of Asian qualifying for the 2018 Fifa World Cup. The ‘War Elephants’ secured a 2-2 draw on 24th March with Iraq (1), who also qualified. The result means that Thailand will also play in the finals of the Asian Cup, being held in the United Arab Emirates in 2019. Elsewhere in Asian Football Confederation (AFC) qualifying there was good news for the troubled nation of Syria (2), who also advanced to the third round. Meanwhile Qatar (3) kept alive their hopes of qualifying for the World Cup by right before they host the tournament in 2022. Two teams will qualify from each of two groups in the third round, with the two third-place teams meeting in a play-off for the right to play for an intercontinental spot. Australia and Japan, Asian football’s leading powers, were drawn together (4) in Group B.

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Joseph Nair/AP/Press Association Images

2 Vahid Salemi/AP/Press Association Images

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Vincent Thian/AP/Press Association Image

Osama Faisal/AP/Press Association Images

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Vincent Thian/AP/Press Association Image

BEYOND THE TOUCHLINE Spanish football’s top ight, LaLiga, is internationally renowned for its standard of play. Now, as its president Javier Tebas explains, the league is responding to changing markets and technological innovation to reach more fans than ever around the world.

LaLiga, a phenomenon without limits Today, a sport such as football has no boundaries. All information can be reached in seconds, whether by searching RQOLQH YLD D QRWLÀFDWLRQ IURP DQ DSS RU with a tweet. The challenge that we face at LaLiga is thrilling. We see constant change in the way that fans participate, wanting to go beyond the 90-minute game and be kept up to date with the very latest news about the competition and about their clubs, trainers and players. The Royal Decree-Law that was approved on 1st May 2015 brought about the most important change in the recent history of LaLiga. Being able to sell the audiovisual rights of the clubs in a joint manner this season has resulted in a capital gain of ₏400 million, which ZLOO VWUHQJWKHQ WKH ÀQDQFLDO VWUXFWXUH RI the clubs and help them face the large amount of competition that exists in the worldwide football market, in which championships like the Premier League have been operating under this model for decades and, thereby, generating large sums of money for signing up new players and retaining their star players. The present cultural context – in the United Kingdom there are 15 million subscribers to pay-TV compared to WKH ÀYH PLOOLRQ WKDW ZH KDYH LQ 6SDLQ – forces us to completely change the way that we sell our audiovisual rights, and this has been understood by the clubs, with the majority approving the measure as they are aware of the results that have been achieved and those that will be achieved. The main batches of audiovisual content that have already been allocated for the 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons will leave a total income of ₏2,650 million. This is still very far behind the English 16 | www.soccerex.com

championship but it is still a big step forward that has never been seen before in our football. The objective, RYHU D SHULRG RI IRXU RU Ă€YH \HDUV LV to achieve the income that the Premier League generates for audiovisual rights. In addition, this audiovisual revolution of LaLiga will not only be quantitative but also qualitative. We are always striving to stay one step ahead in our televised transmissions and in the way that we deliver the product to all our fans. We work every day to make sure that the fans’ experience is the best it can possibly be, so that they can ‘live’ the experience of their idols and their favourite club. We have already begun the journey with El ClĂĄsico, the largest sporting event in the world, more important than events like the National Football /HDJXH¡V 6XSHU %RZO 7KH GXHO WKDW was played out at Camp Nou was the Ă€UVW IRRWEDOO JDPH WUDQVPLWWHG OLYH ZLWK virtual reality (VR) technology and you can be sure that we will announce new innovations soon.

LaLiga’s organisers aim to expand its global reach

The important role of the broadcasters One of our strategic focuses is the TV operators, our partners. We want to stay in close contact with the media that purchase the audiovisual rights to LaLiga and know what type of audience they have, what content is of interest and how we can work so that our product is broadcast in the best possible manner over all available channels. 2XU LQWHUQDWLRQDO RIÀFHV LQ 'XEDL WKH 86$ 6RXWK $IULFD DQG &KLQD PDNH VXUH WKDW WKH LQIRUPDWLRQ à RZ is permanent, and that we can work together in the events that we organise IRU RXU IDQV RQ WKH ÀYH FRQWLQHQWV +RZHYHU ZH DUH QRW VDWLVÀHG ZLWK MXVW bringing LaLiga to all corners of the world. We also want to bring the passion of our stars to those fans that do not have the regular opportunity to go to the stadiums LQ 6SDLQ $OO RI WKHP ZLOO EH DEOH WR IROORZ LaLiga on their different devices. Through the Liga BBVA Experience project, and the cooperation of some of our broadcasters, we have made it possible for more than 100 international fans to WUDYHO WR 6SDLQ DQG PDNH WKHLU GUHDPV come true by attending a Liga BBVA match, visiting the museums of the most HPLQHQW SOD\LQJ ÀHOGV JHWWLQJ WR NQRZ RXU most passionate football fans and being able to greet their idols after the matches. You don’t just enjoy LaLiga, you live it. We have come a long way in the last WKUHH \HDUV EXW ZH DUH VWLOO QRW VDWLVÀHG We know that we have the best players and the best football clubs in the world, and it is time to get the most out of the game so that this spectacular moment of the LaLiga teams upholds its worldwide position. For another season we have the maximum presence of LaLiga clubs in the most important European competitions. We will continue to work...

FOOTBALL IN...

COLOMBIA After rising to an all-time high world ranking of fourth earlier this year, on the back of its most successful Fifa World Cup campaign ever, Colombia is a footballing nation in a golden age. As the country prepares for the Copa América Centenario and its domestic league reaches its first climax of the season, SoccerexPro takes a closer look at one of South America’s most storied powers.

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f the 50 most expensive football transfers of all WLPH À YH KDYH LQYROYHG Colombian players. Only PXOWLSOH )LID :RUOG &XS ZLQQHUV $UJHQWLQD DQG %UD]LO FDQ ERDVW PRUH ,W·V DQ LPSUHVVLYH VWDWLVWLF IRU D QDWLRQ WKDW KDV RQO\ IHDWXUHG DW À YH :RUOG &XSV 7KRVH À YH WUDQVIHUV KDYH LQYROYHG RQO\ WKUHH SOD\HUV DQG KDYH DOO WDNHQ SODFH LQ WKH ODVW À YH \HDUV -DPHV 5RGUtJXH] RI 5HDO 0DGULG DQG 5DGDPHO )DOFDR IHDWXUH LQ IRXU RI WKH GHDOV ZKLOH -DFNVRQ 0DUWtQH]·V KLJK SURÀ OH PRYH WR &KLQD DOVR PDNHV WKH FXW :KLOH WKH Colombian national team have often OLYHG LQ WKH VKDGRZ RI FHUWDLQ 6RXWK $PHULFDQ QHLJKERXUV WKH\ KDYH HQMR\HG D VXFFHVVIXO SHULRG RI ODWH 7KH WHDP·V ODVW JROGHQ HUD FDPH LQ WKH V DQG HDUO\ V ZKHQ Los Cafeteros ZRQ WKH &RSD $PpULFD DQG FDPH IRXUWK LQ WKH &RQIHGHUDWLRQV &XS )ROORZLQJ WKLV KRZHYHU WKH\ IDLOHG WR TXDOLI\ IRU WKH À UVW WKUHH :RUOG &XSV RI WKH FHQWXU\ %XW DIWHU D \HDU ZDLW WKH\ UHWXUQHG WR WKH :RUOG &XS LQ ZLWK 5RGUtJXH] DQG )DOFDR VSHDUKHDGLQJ ZKDW WKH &RORPELDQ PHGLD ODEHOOHG WKH ¶QHZ JROGHQ JHQHUDWLRQ· 7KH\ PDGH D WKULOOLQJ UXQ WR WKH TXDUWHU À QDOV EHIRUH ORVLQJ WR KRVWV %UD]LO 5RGUtJXH] OHIW WKH WRXUQDPHQW DV WRS VFRUHU DQG WKH WHDP URVH WR IRXUWK LQ WKH )LID :RUOG 5DQNLQJV DQ DOO WLPH KLJK SODFLQJ $ GLVDSSRLQWLQJ À UVW URXQG H[LW IROORZHG LQ WKH &RSD $PpULFD EXW &RORPELD GR KDYH DQ XQXVXDO FKDQFH IRU LPPHGLDWH UHGHPSWLRQ DW WKLV \HDU·V &RSD $PpULFD &HQWHQDULR D WHDP WRXUQDPHQW LQ WKH 86 FHOHEUDWLQJ &RQPHERO·V FHQWHQDU\ ZLWK WKH KHOS RI 1RUWK DQG &HQWUDO $PHULFD·V &RQFDFDI :LWK -DPHV 5RGULJXH] VWLOO RQO\ DQG

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James Rodríguez is Colombia’s biggest star

\HDU ROG -HLVRQ 0XULOOR VWDUULQJ LQ 6HULH $ IRU ,QWHU 0LODQ WKH IXWXUH RI &RORPELDQ national football remains bright. )RRWEDOO KDV EHHQ SOD\HG SURIHVVLRQDOO\ LQ &RORPELD VLQFH EXW LW ZDVQ·W XQWLO WKDW WKH WRS GRPHVWLF OHDJXH &DWHJRUtD 3UHPLHUD $ ZDV IRXQGHG +LVWRULFDOO\ WDOHQWHG SURVSHFWV KDYH OHIW HDUO\ LQ WKHLU FDUHHUV WR GHYHORS WKHLU WUDGH LQ %UD]LO $UJHQWLQD RU (XURSH·V PDMRU OHDJXHV ,Q WKH V WKH UHYHUVH ZDV EULHÁ \ WUXH DV &RORPELD EURNH DZD\ IURP )LID FRQWURO DQG WKH OLNHV RI (QJODQG·V ¶%RJRWD %DQGLWV· ²1HLO )UDQNOLQ *HRUJH 0RXQWIRUG DQG &KDUOLH 0LWWHQ ² DQG WKH JUHDW $OIUHGR 'L 6WpIDQR DUULYHG LQ VHDUFK RI ZDJHV WULSOH WKRVH RQ RIIHU LQ (XURSH 8OWLPDWHO\ &RORPELD IHOO EDFN XQGHU WKH FRQWURO RI )LID DQG ¶(O 'RUDGR· FDPH WR DQ HQG 0XFK OLNH &RORPELD LWVHOI WKH QDWLRQ·V JDPH KDV DOVR EHHQ WDUUHG E\ FULPLQDO DFWLYLW\ $WOpWLFR 1DFLRQDO·V 3DEOR (VFREDU ZDV WKH PRVW SURPLQHQW RI WKH FOXE RZQHUV À OWHULQJ GUXJ PRQH\ WKURXJK WKH OHDJXH LQ WKH ¶QDUFR VRFFHU· SHULRG RI WKH V ,Q $WOpWLFR 1DFLRQDO FHQWUH EDFN $QGUHV (VFREDU ² QR UHODWLRQ ² VFRUHG DQ RZQ JRDO DJDLQVW WKH 8QLWHG 6WDWHV GXULQJ WKH :RUOG &XS JURXS VWDJH 7KH $PHULFDQV ZHQW RQ

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Broadcast Currently only 11 cities in Colombia have access to digital television, meaning that distribution of broadcast rights can be tricky. For the 2014 Fifa World Cup in Brazil, private television networks Caracol and RCN acquired the free-to-air digital broadcast rights. The two networks created a digital television channel, airing all 64

tournament matches to digital-enabled areas. While important games were made available to analogue users, DirecTV held the pay-television rights to the rest of the tournament. In 2016 RCN again acquired the rights to broadcast the 2016 Copa América Centenario, the centennial edition of the South American continental

championship. This time acting alone, the pay-TV network will air all of Columbia’s games. The tournament, which will be hosted in North America for the first time ever, will feature 16 teams and brings together entrants from South America’s Conmebol, and North and Central America’s Concacaf.

Liga A club

Founded

Stadium

2015 Finish

Alianza Petrolera

1991

Estadio Daniel Villa Zapata

14th

Atlético Bucaramanga

1949

Estadio Alfonso López

Tourneo Águila Champion

Atlético Huila

1990

Estadio Guillermo Plazas Alcid

11th

Atlético Nacional

1947

Atanasio Girardot Sports Complex

1st (Finalización Champion)

Boyacá Chicó

2002

Estadio La Independencia

18th

Cortuluá

1967

Estadio Doce de Octubre

15th

Deportes Tolima

1954

Estadio Manuel Murillo Toro

5th

Deportivo Cali

1912

Estadio Deportivo Cali

4th (Apertura Champion)

Deportivo Pasto

1949

Estadio Departamental Libertad

16th

Envigado

1989

Estadio Polideportivo Sur

8th

Fortalenza

2010

Estadio Metropolitano de Techo

Torneo Águila Runner-Up

Independiente Medllín

1913

Atanasio Girardot Sports Complex

2nd

Jaguares

2012

Estadio Jaraguay

19th

Junior

1924

Estadio Metropolitano Roberto Melédez

3rd

La Equidad

1982

Estadio Metropolitano de Techo

13th

Millionarios

1946

Estadio El Campín

6th

Once Caldas

1947

Estadio Palogrande

9th

Patriotas

2003

Estadio La Independencia

10th

Rionegro Águilas

1991

Estadio Alberto Grisales

12th (as Águilas Doradas)

Santa Fe

1941

Estadio El Campín

7th

Sponsorship In December 2014 SABMiller’s Colombian subsidiary, Bavaria Beer, bought an extensive portfolio of naming rights throughout domestic Colombian football. The company, through its Cerveza Águila brand, is title sponsor of Liga A, Liga B, and domestic cup competitions in a deal that will run until 2019. Sponsorship of individual clubs, meanwhile, is generally

reserved for regional partners. The Colombian national team, in contrast to the domestic game, have a wide, high-profile portfolio of sponsors. In May 2013 the FCF signed an extension with sportswear firm Adidas to supply kit to the national team for the following nine years. The deal was a renewal of a much smaller two year agreement signed in 2011, and positioned Colombia

next to Spain, Argentina, and Germany as global ambassadors of Adidas. Other sponsors of the national team include oil and gas firm Pacific Rubiales, Spanish mobile operator Movistar and global insurer Allianz, while high-profile European exports James Rodríguez and Radamel Falcao boast major personal endorsement deals with Adidas and Puma respectively.

SOCCEREXPRO | 19

IN DEVELOPMENT

CHANGING THE STATE OF PLAY Play for Change is a charity that has now reached three continents and changed the lives of thousands of children living in poverty. Later this year, it will embark on its most ambitious project ever. Director Marie Le Page tells Tom Lloyd how the organisation started, and how it has grown since 2010.

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20 | www.soccerex.com

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The Jupiler Belgian Schools Cup runs in association with all 16 of the country’s Pro League Clubs

The Play for Change project, founded by Andrea Radrizzani, has been involved in an increasing number of youth projects since it was established in 2010

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THE BIG FIX This summer’s Copa AmÊrica Centenario looked for all the world like a historic, once in a generation event when it was formally launched two years ago. Yet alleged corruption in the Americas pushed the tournament to the brink of collapse, leaving the event’s organisers, as Michael Long discovers, in a race against time to repair the damage.

I

t was the dream set-up and, like all fantasies, it might never have happened. This summer’s Copa AmĂŠrica Centenario was meant to be ‘the cup of the century’, a colourful celebration of football that would unite the Americas and bring joy to millions of fans around the world. It was to both mark and make history: a once in a lifetime tournament featuring many of the planet’s most talented stars; held to commemorate 100 years since the creation of South America’s preeminent event and the continent’s chief DXWKRULW\ &RQPHERO SOD\HG IRU WKH Ă€UVW time in the United States of America, football’s great land of opportunity and, in commercial terms, a waking giant. Some story it would have been. In the end, however, the Copa AmĂŠrica Centenario almost went down in history with an asterisk for all the wrong reasons. Plunged into the heart of the corruption scandal that rocked world football a year ago, the tournament was tarnished long before it became reality; a casualty of the circumstances under which it was conceived, let down by the very game – and people – it was intended to celebrate. The problems, though well documented now, stem back to 2012, when Conmebol Ă€UVW PRRWHG LWV LQWHQWLRQ WR VWDJH WKH tournament. The confederation, then under the notorious reign of its longstanding president, the Godfather-like NicolĂĄs Leoz, harboured what would be

22 | www.soccerex.com

FC Barcelona team mates Neymar and Luis Suárez will hope to line up against each other this summer at the Copa América Centenario, with Brazil and Uruguay respectively

“Today, one has to question the possibility of playing this tournament. We have to be prepared for enormous turmoil to hold this event.”

SOCCEREXPRO | 23

Alan Diaz/AP/Press Association Images

Jeffrey Webb and Eugenio Figueredo pictured with the trophy in 2014, before their arrests

attractive markets, of course – granted automatic spots. The remaining four Concacaf teams would have to qualify, either through the 2015 Gold Cup, the 2014 Central American Cup or the 2014 Caribbean Cup. The competition would take place from 3rd to 26th June in major cities and stadiums across America. Figueredo and his Concacaf counterpart, Jeffrey Webb, were all smiles and handshakes as they stood side by side at the launch event. Little wonder: the two men, DORQJ ZLWK RWKHU VHQLRU RIĂ€FLDOV LQFOXGLQJ Leoz, stood to pocket bribes totalling an astonishing US$110 million, paid for by 'DWLVD ZKLFK E\ QRZ ZDV WUDGLQJ XQGHU the name WeMatch. At least US$40 million was to be handed over within a year. Leoz’s DPELWLRXV SODQ ZDV Ă€QDOO\ FRPLQJ WRJHWKHU Then, that fateful day in Zurich – the day Sepp Blatter’s embattled Fifa regime Ă€QDOO\ IHOO ² WK 0D\

Fernando Llano/AP/Press Association Images

a bold and historic plan: to take South America’s beloved Copa AmĂŠrica to US soil and create the largest football event played in the country since the 1994 Fifa World Cup. The rest, of course, is history. In the ensuing months, as it would later WUDQVSLUH H[HFXWLYHV DW 7UDIĂ€F *URXS D multinational sports marketing company based in Brazil, and rival Argentinean companies Full Play Group and Torneos y Competencias SA, plotted a scheme to obtain the lucrative sponsorship and broadcast rights to an event that would surely be a guaranteed money-spinner. As part of the scheme the three companies IRUPHG D QHZ Ă€UP FDOOHG 'DWLVD WKURXJK which they would go on to secure, from Conmebol, a US$317.5 million contract for the exclusive worldwide rights to the 2015, 2019 and 2023 Copa AmĂŠricas, and a separate US$35 million deal with Concacaf, Conmebol’s counterpart in North and Central America and the Caribbean, for the rights to the Copa AmĂŠrica Centenario. Around that time, in April 2013, Leoz unexpectedly resigned his muchmaligned presidency. His “sincere, honestâ€? job was done, he said, but his legacy would be carried on by Eugenio Figueredo, the former head of the Uruguayan Football Association (AUF). Figueredo picked up right where Leoz left off, continuing to push through preparations for the lucrative Centenario jamboree. In May 2014, at a glitzy event in 0LDPL &RQPHERO DQG &RQFDFDI RIĂ€FLDOO\ unveiled plans for the tournament. Six Concacaf teams, they declared, would compete alongside the regular ten South American participants, with the USA and Mexico – representatives of especially

Former Fifa president Sepp Blatter points the ďŹ nger at the ex-head of Conmebol, NicolĂĄs Leoz 24 | www.soccerex.com

In the biggest bombshell ever to be dropped on world football, the US 'HSDUWPHQW RI -XVWLFH UHOHDVHG D page, 92-count indictment that publicly named a group of 14 high-ranking RIĂ€FLDOV DQG PDUNHWLQJ H[HFXWLYHV DV co-conspirators in a massive web of corruption spanning the Americas. Figueredo and Webb, it emerged, were among them. Both were arrested and charged with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering following dawn raids at Zurich’s luxury Baur au Lac hotel, a favourite Fifa haunt, on the eve of the global body’s annual congress. Like Fifa itself, the Copa AmĂŠrica Centenario was thrust into chaos. Webb was held by Swiss authorities while the four marketing executives named in WKH LQGLFWPHQW ² $DURQ 'DYLGVRQ WKH SUHVLGHQW RI 7UDIĂ€F 6SRUWV 86$ ,QF Alejandro Burzaco, the head of Torneos y Competencias; and Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, the controlling principals at Full Play Group – were being questioned elsewhere. Meanwhile Figueredo returned home to Uruguay, where he was taken into custody after a brief period in hospital, and Leoz, for his part, was put under house arrest in Paraguay. The game, at last, was up. Centenario preparations ground to a halt. “Today, one has to question the possibility of playing this tournament,â€? Conmebol’s then-secretary general Jose Luis Meiszner told Argentinian radio following the arrests. “We have to be prepared for enormous turmoil to hold this event, given the rights holders are also being questioned.â€?

Mark J. Terrill/AP/Press Association Images

The new organisers of the Copa AmĂŠrica Centenario tournament reached out to familiar, experienced partners like Coca-Cola, Nike and Samsung

With the US investigation, led by the country’s stern-talking attorney general, Loretta Lynch, unfolding before the eyes of the world, attempts to salvage the tournament saw a crisis meeting called in Mexico in September. Though they GLG QRW DWWHQG WKH PHHWLQJ RIĂ€ FLDOV at the US Soccer Federation, the host association, were seeking assurances over their contracts with their continental colleagues, wary of further arrests and their liability under any potential legal DFWLRQ 'DWLVD¡V EDQN DFFRXQWV KDG been frozen. As talks continued, it was touch and go whether the tournament would take place at all, the crisis at Fifa having rendered it virtually impossible to conduct any meaningful business. While several of their concerns went unanswered, the turning point for US Soccer came when Conmebol DQG &RQFDFDI Ă€ QDOO\ WHUPLQDWHG WKHLU FRQWUDFWV ZLWK 'DWLVD %RWK confederations were reassigned the tournament’s commercial rights – or, at least, those that had not already been attributed – before offering them out to market once again last October. The new request for proposal (RFP), not XQH[SHFWHGO\ JDUQHUHG VLJQLĂ€ FDQW LQWHUHVW A total of 12 bids were entered and in 'HFHPEHU WKH ULJKWV ZHUH UH DZDUGHG – this time to IMG and Soccer United Marketing (SUM), the commercial arm

“Fans are not fans of the suits, they’re fans of the guys that wear the uniforms on the ďŹ eld.â€? of Major League Soccer (MLS), whose combined proposal was reported to include a guarantee of almost US$20 PLOOLRQ ZLWK DQ\ UHPDLQLQJ SURĂ€ WV VSOLW between the organisers and the agencies. “We looked at it and said our job in this was to put our best foot forward and we felt that the combination between ourselves and IMG was pretty VLJQLĂ€ FDQW Âľ VD\V .DWK\ &DUWHU WKH president of SUM. “We weren’t as worried about who else was bidding because you can only do what you can do, and ultimately we had to put forward what we felt was the best way to move forward with the tournament given the tight timeframes. “To this day, I don’t know what the 11 other bids were. Obviously we’ve heard bits and pieces of folks that had put documents in but, by the same token, it didn’t really faze us so much because we said, ‘Look, if we play to our strengths,

let the chips fall where they may.’â€? IMG and SUM got straight to work, splitting media and sponsorship sales responsibilities respectively. One of the selection criteria upon which Conmebol and Concacaf made their decision, alongside things like ‘reputation’, ‘responsiveness’ and ‘resources’, was a ‘preparedness to move quickly to market and service the rights’. With the clock ticking towards to the tournament’s 3rd June start date, it was also announced that ESP Properties, a division of WPP, and SJX Partners, a unit of CSM Sports and Entertainment, would assist IMG DQG 680 VSHFLĂ€ FDOO\ LQ WKHLU HIIRUWV WR procure sponsors. “We brought them in because we felt that, on the sponsorship side of the business, the greatest concern that we had was covering the market as quickly as would be required,â€? explains Carter. “We had a longstanding relationship both the SOCCEREXPRO | 25

The visit of South American stars to the US presents a huge commercial opportunity for sponsors

management at SJX and the management at ESP. ESP had a lot of tentacles, if you will, down into South America and SJX has a great rolodex in the United States. We just felt it gave us greater coverage – although, to be fair, we always knew that the majority of the business would be done by our group and by our sales folks.â€? For the tournament’s organisers, the arrival of the new representatives was a VLJQLĂ€FDQW VWHS IRUZDUG +HUH ZHUH IRXU internationally reputable companies that would be tasked with getting commercial and marketing preparations back on track while restoring trust, credibility and fresh momentum into negotiations with prospective partners. “Quite frankly,â€? adds Carter, “the most important part of our bid with the organisers was one of transparency, and we felt very strongly that they should have a say in how the business was run and ultimately should have visibility not just into the sales, but also into how clients were going to activate and what we were going to do to operate the event from a marketing standpoint. And that’s something that they achieved. The basis of our bid was: ‘While we’re prepared to SURYLGH \RX VRPH Ă€QDQFLDO VHFXULW\ WKH bar won’t be too high because ultimately you need to understand what your property is worth and you need to be a part of the process.’ That was really the key tenet from our perspective.â€? 26 | www.soccerex.com

Progress on the commercial front, however, could do little to avert developments taking place elsewhere. When the new agencies were announced RQ QG 'HFHPEHU RUJDQLVHUV PDGH D point of emphasising the thorough, open and transparent nature of the bidding process. The timing could not have been worse. Just hours later, US 6RFFHU¡V IHDUV ZHUH FRQĂ€UPHG ZKHQ -XDQ Angel Napout and Alfredo Hawit, the respective acting heads of Conmebol and Concacaf and both Fifa vice presidents, were arrested in a second dawn raid in Switzerland. The same city, the same luxury hotel. Both men were subsequently suspended for 90 days by Fifa’s own ethics committee pending the ongoing investigation. It was yet another body blow for the local organising committee. With the fog of doubt and suspicion descending once again, US Soccer released a statement insisting the event would go ahead as planned. The latest arrests, it said, in ‘no way pierce the integrity of the rigorous safeguards’ the federation had put in place to ensure the event would be ‘organised and conducted in a way that is open, transparent and above reproach’. US Soccer also sought to distance itself from Napout and Hawit, despite the pair having been personally quoted RQ WKH UHOHDVH FRQĂ€UPLQJ WKH VHOHFWLRQ of IMG and SUM. ‘The new executive

committee that was created to govern the tournament does not include these individuals and they were never in a position to make decisions that would adversely impact those high standards,’ the federation’s statement added. With that, preparations stumbled uneasily on. By January, Conmebol had elected its fourth president in three years. $OHMDQGUR 'RPLQJXH] D FORVH IULHQG RI Napout – who, incidentally, had entered a not guilty plea at a court in New <RUN LQ 'HFHPEHU ² ZDV XQDQLPRXVO\ backed by the confederation’s ten member associations at an extraordinary session in Luque, in his native Paraguay. He was the lone candidate after the withdrawal of Uruguay’s interim president Wilmar Vasquez. “My biggest promise is to restore credibility to Conmebol,â€? insisted 'RPLQJXH] VSHDNLQJ DIWHU WKH YRWH ZDV held, in a strange yet not inconceivable twist of fate, at a conference centre named after Leoz. “We want to emphasise WUDQVSDUHQF\ Âľ 'RPLQJXH] UHLWHUDWHG ´:H want to return to the essence of football, the values and the fair play.â€? Concacaf, meanwhile, would now be temporarily led by Ted Howard, the body’s acting deputy general secretary, a UROH WKH $PHULFDQ KDG Ă€OOHG RQO\ VLQFH last June when the Colombian Enrique 6DQ] D IRUPHU 7UDIĂ€F 6SRUWV H[HFXWLYH was suspended by Fifa due to corruption charges. Hawit, like Napout, was out of the picture, facing four counts of conspiracy linked to the bribery scandal. The Honduran lawyer, who was extradited from Switzerland to the US following KLV DUUHVW LQ 'HFHPEHU DGPLWWHG LQ $SULO to accepting bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, money that was paid into bank accounts he and his family controlled in Panama and Honduras. The 64-year-old remains on bail and is due to appear in court again in October. Each count against him carries a maximum of 20 years in prison and he must also forfeit US$950,000 upon sentencing. The next head of Concacaf will be chosen in an election on 12th May, with Canadian Victor Montagliani and Bermuda’s Larry Mussenden the men to have thrown their hats into the ring. That this summer’s tournament is going ahead at all is, given the circumstances, remarkable to say the least. Still, major companies have not

shied away from associating with the event. Nike, Coca-Cola, State Farm, 6SULQW 'HOWD $LU /LQHV $QKHXVHU %XVFK Tag Heuer, Samsung and Makita had all signed up at the time of publication. It is perhaps telling, though, that, with the exception of Makita, the Japanese power tools company, each of those corporations has longstanding ties to soccer in the Americas, through prior GHDOV ZLWK &RQFDFDI 7UDIĂ€F 6SRUWV SUM, or all three. It is clear, then, that SUM, in a race against time to shore up its partner portfolio, has not strayed far from its reliable bank of go-to sponsors. “Of course,â€? says Carter, “we have relationships with almost all companies that are doing business in soccer in the Americas but, by the same token, one of the things that we spoke to the confederations about was that brand actually mattered in this tournament, given the legacy of why we were planning so late and selling so late. “We knew going in that the biggest hurdle that we had to overcome was one of time. That was something that factored into our thinking when we actually put forward our recommended strategy. We said, ‘We won’t know, until we’re actually in the market, what the market will truly bear.’ Ultimately we said, ‘Look, the hardest thing we’ve got is the clock, and it doesn’t matter how good you are, nobody has the ability to turn back time.’â€? If tournament sponsorship has

suffered in the wake of the corruption scandal, the value of the event’s media rights have, not surprisingly, taken a similar hit. US network Fox Sports ZDV UHSRUWHGO\ FORVH WR Ă€QDOLVLQJ D GHDO before the furore erupted and while it did eventually return to the negotiating table to seal an agreement this January, the US$15 million it ultimately committed on the domestic English-language TV rights was around four times less than Univision had paid for Spanish-language coverage before the scandal broke. Since then, the chief focus for IMG’s media sales team has been on the international market. In recent weeks, the agency has signed up the likes of Sky Italia, Australia’s SBS and Colombia’s RCN, while HBS, a division of Infront Sports & Media, has come on board as the event’s production partner. More deals with overseas broadcasters will surely follow as the tournament nears but there is no denying that recent events have conspired to make contract negotiations far tougher than they might have been. Indeed, Carter admits that talks with all prospective partners have been slow DQG GLIĂ€FXOW LQ OLJKW RI WKH FOLPDWH surrounding Fifa, not to mention the way in which football in the Americas is now viewed with suspicion internationally. 680 VKH VD\V Ă€UVW KDG WR PDNH VXUH LW could “credibly and honourably represent the tournament in a fair and transparent wayâ€? before getting involved, and ZKLOH VKH LV QRZ FRQĂ€GHQW ´DOO RI WKH

Former stars Carlos Valderamma of Colombia and Alexei Lalas of the USA at the Centenario draw

governance has been put in place and all RI WKH ULJKW SLHFHV RI WKH Ă€QDQFLDO SX]]OH have been put in place to make sure that any monies that are generated are all above board and go the right directionâ€?, she has been at pains to reassure both potential and existing partners. “We can credibly suggest to anyone that is aligning their brand with this tournament, and ultimately trying to reach the fans that are buying tickets in droves, that this is something that is positive,â€? she insists. “You know, at the end of the day, what we often talk about is fans are not fans of the suits, they’re fans of the guys that wear the uniforms RQ WKH Ă€HOG 6R ZKDW ZH KDG WR GR ZDV get all of the suits out of the discussion relative to what the fans care about: they care about the game. “I think we’ve been able to do that with all of the partners and give them JUHDW FRQĂ€GHQFH WKDW WKLV UHDOO\ LV DERXW the game and we’ve been able to give WKHP FODULW\ DQG FRQĂ€GHQFH DURXQG WKH management of the tournament.â€? For all the turmoil that has blighted preparations, then, Carter says SUM and IMG are thankfully “in a good placeâ€? to hit their revenue targets just weeks out from the start of the tournament. “We, along with the confederations, built a strategy because we didn’t know how fast the market would respond,â€? she says. “While we had some insight, we weren’t quite sure how everybody [would react]. When push came to shove, would they sign on the dotted line? We’re very, very pleased that they have, and so we are tracking against where we thought we would be.â€? More importantly, though, Carter believes the tournament, come kick-off time, can and will shine a light on what really matters: the football. “We saw it again last summer when, in the midst of all of this, we had unbelievable reaction to the Fifa Women’s World Cup in Canada,â€? she points out. “The fans came out in record numbers and, certainly from a North American perspective, tuned in in record numbers. That was all while it was fresh and everything was live, so from our perspective, again, the game is what fans pay to see; they pay to see their stars and they’re fans of their country. “As long as we can get the suits out of the way, this is about the players – it’s about the countries and it’s about the players and it’s about the fans.â€? SOCCEREXPRO | 27

maximising the value of your digital rights

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PART OF THE CLUB As part of the team that founded Major League Soccer in the 1990s, Kevin Payne was one of the executives who established football as a serious commercial force in North America. Now, as he tells Eoin Connolly, the chief executive of grassroots organisation US Club Soccer hopes to help create an on-ďŹ eld game to match.

What is US Club Soccer?

US Club Soccer is what’s called a national association member of US Soccer, which means that we register players and conduct programmes in more than 35 states. In our case, we’re in all 50 states. We’re one of the three largest youth soccer organisations in the country. We have about 85 per cent of our registered players who are competitive, where the other youth soccer organisations tend WR EH WKH UHYHUVH RI WKDW 6SHFLÀ FDOO\ we are organised around clubs. We’re not a political organisation – we exist to provide services and support to soccer clubs because we think that clubs are really the foundational piece for the game and present the best platform on which to improve the game here in the United States. What’s the US Club Soccer story? How did the organisation come to be?

Most of my career has been as a senior H[HFXWLYH DW QDWLRQDO OHYHO ² Ă€ UVW ZLWK the federation, then with the marketing company that owns the federation’s rights, and then I was one of the founders of Major League Soccer [MLS] and did that for almost 20 years. I kind of stepped away from the professional game and joined US Club Soccer as a consultant in 2014 and as CEO in 2015. The organisation itself was begun in 2001 and it was established initially by a group of clubs who were unhappy with the restrictions placed on them by what are called the state associations, which are the members of the United States Youth Soccer organisation. They felt that the rules and regulations of those organisations were too restrictive, they were aimed mostly at satisfying the needs of recreational soccer, and they didn’t in their view take into account the needs of more ambitious clubs. So that’s how it was formed. We now have about 500,000 members and 30 | www.soccerex.com

we’re growing. We’re the one membership organisation of US Soccer which over the ODVW À YH \HDUV KDV JURZQ HYHU\ \HDU /DVW year we grew by right around ten per cent, and we’re on pace to grow by a similar amount this year. What’s the structure of the organisation? How are you able to reach people in different states and reach out to clubs around those states?

There are a variety of large regional OHDJXHV WKDW DUH DIĂ€ OLDWHG ZLWK XV )RU instance, our biggest member, which is called NorCal, is a league with many, many different divisions which is based in northern California, western Nevada, and Oregon. NorCal has almost 100,000 members and it’s a very highly organised league that provides lots of support to its members, lots of coaching educational opportunities, a lot of programming in terms of inter and intra-league play – tournaments and so forth. So that’s a physical way that we’re organised. We have other such leagues – we have six of those leagues in the area from New York to New England, we have a very large league in the Chicago area, we have a large league that encompasses all RI )ORULGD 6R WKDW¡V NLQG RI KRZ ZH¡UH organised. Typically, it doesn’t make sense for an individual club to join us. Obviously they have to have some place to play. So most of our membership is through leagues that we sanction. How important is the input of some of your partners – the likes of Nike, Nationwide and so on? And is that tied to you directly or is it tied to US Soccer in any way?

No, no, it has nothing to do with US Soccer. Nike is a very important partner – our most important partner. They’ve been our partner for about four years. 7KH\ JLYH XV D ORW RI VXSSRUW ² Ă€ QDQFLDO

support, in-kind support, and other types of support. When we launched our ‘Players )LUVW¡ LQLWLDWLYH IRU H[DPSOH ZKLFK LV RXU most ambitious programme aimed at trying to change the culture of youth soccer in America, we launched that at the Nike headquarters. The La Liga relationship really came about because Nike‌ La Liga was looking for a grassroots partner in the United States and Nike introduced them to us and said, ‘US Club Soccer is the organisation you should work with.’ What does that partnership with La Liga enable you to do now? What kind of expertise are they providing?

We are very focused on trying to provide support to enable our coaches to become better at what they do. I’m the chairman of the US Soccer technical committee – actually, that committee is not very active right now but in the past we’ve been very active. That committee created the development academy structure in the United States, for instance. So I’ve been involved for a long time trying to Ă€ JXUH RXW KRZ LW LV WKDW ZH¡YH KDG PRUH registered youth soccer players over the last 25 years than any country in the world but have failed to produce a single ZRUOG FODVV PHQ¡V Ă€ HOG SOD\HU And so while US Soccer is trying to resolve that question by focusing on the top half a per cent or one tenth of one per cent of players through the development academies, what we want to do is effect change at a slightly lower level and much more broadly. In the United States, youth soccer developed in the absence of a professional league, so it is kind of an end in itself – unfortunately. And it’s a very, very big business. It’s about a four and a half RU Ă€ YH ELOOLRQ GROODU EXVLQHVV LQ WKH United States. So what we’re trying to do is convince coaches that they needed to continue to educate themselves

Kevin Payne is chief executive of US Club Soccer, a grassroots initiative to develop the game on the pitch as well as off it in North America

“We are very focused on trying to provide support to enable our coaches to become better at what they do.â€? constantly and they need to refocus their attention away from trying to win youth soccer games and more towards trying to develop youth players as individuals. <RX ORRN DW WKH ZD\ )UDQFH ² ZKLFK ZDV NLQG RI WKH Ă€ UVW RI WKH (XURSHDQ nations to undergo a systemic overhaul, but then followed quickly by Spain, then Germany, then Belgium and even Iceland – and a number of countries that have looked at this and said, “How do we change our environment in order to

have greater success?� The one common thread with all of them is there’s a foundational philosophy that if you want better players, you need better coaches. And in order to get better coaches, you need to create a better coaching instructional environment. We are constantly looking for ways to provide more support to our clubs and coaches, to help them improve themselves. So when we started to talk with La Liga, what was most interesting

to us was that the La Liga academies, the Spanish youth development model, is arguably the best in the world. They have WKH EHVW OHDJXH LQ WKH ZRUOG RQ WKH À HOG and they also have the highest percentage of domestic players of any of the major European leagues. So obviously, they’re doing something right when it comes to developing players – not only world class players but a very large number of extremely competent professional players. So we were interested in whether they SOCCEREXPRO | 31

Greater education is a major facous for US Club Soccer, not just for the players, but for ensuring the coaches work at the highest possible level

would be interested in trying to show us their methodology. How do they do this? What’s the philosophy? What’s the process? And they’ve agreed to do that. So we’ve created – well, really, they’ve created – what we’re calling the ‘La Liga )RUPDWLRQ 0HWKRGRORJ\ &RXUVH· It’s not a licence. Our federation is responsible for licensing and we are very supportive of that role. This is additional education; it’s a way of helping our coaches understand another way of training players, a way that’s very proven and very successful. So that’s the basis of it. I think from La Liga’s point of view, their interest is that they want to increase their awareness in the United States. This is the wealthiest sports market in the world. The EPL [Premier League] has done a very good job of establishing themselves here through great marketing and a good television partner, and from La Liga’s point of view, they believe that they actually have a superior product RQ WKH ÀHOG ² DQG WKH\ GRQ·W MXVW PHDQ Barcelona and Real Madrid. So they want people in America to become increasingly aware of La Liga and particularly of the quality of La Liga. So they decided that one way to accomplish that was to sort 32 | www.soccerex.com

of, you know the phrase, pay it forward. In other words, before asking anything of the American marketplace, they wanted to see how they could help the American soccer community. That’s a very refreshing approach. Too often, clubs have come here and really haven’t had any interest other than taking money out of the market. Beyond that technical partnership, what kind of things are we going to see from La Liga and US Club Soccer in promoting that activity?

They’re doing that themselves. We’re not YHU\ LQYROYHG LQ WKDW VSHFLÀFDOO\ :H IHDWXUH a number of links and so forth on our various digital platforms to La Liga. We promote their activities. We are looking at doing a number of different promotional activities aimed at young players with La Liga, some of which will involve young players actually visiting Spain. We haven’t developed those plans fully yet. We also want to create a virtual skills challenge that would be done online using video. You know, young people today spend ten to 12 hours a week online watching video. We and everybody are trying desperately to get young players to

more time training on their own so they can develop creativity and not always be under the thumb of an adult. So this is one tool that we want to attempt to see if we can interest kids in almost full limits of practising. They would actually video their training, what they’re doing, or they’d look at a video and then practise it, and then upload video of themselves to this website and then share that through this platform with their peers in lots of other countries. The partner we have in that is called TopYa, and it’s become very, very popular – actually very popular in the UK. In many cases, it’s kids doing sort of wacky tricks, you know, kind of funny things, but a lot of it’s real soccer. What we are going to do with La Liga is develop a curriculum of training tips and tools for kids that they can watch on TopYa and then emulate, and video themselves practising those skills and then upload. And eventually, what we’ve discussed is actually creating a contest that could be international, with judging and so IRUWK DQG WKHQ SURIHVVLRQDO IXOÀOPHQW at half-time of a La Liga match. We’re in the early stages of determining what WKH EURDG RSSRUWXQLWLHV DUH 7KH ÀUVW part that we rolled out was the La Liga

Formation Methodology Course. You mentioned the lack of a breakthrough world class player on the men’s side. Do you think that’s the last step for American soccer to make it a properly established nation?

Well, I think commercially we’re pretty well established. We’re the largest market in the world for World Cup rights fees; we’re the largest market outside of England for the EPL rights fees. We have a thriving domestic league – MLS is really, it’s biggest challenge right now is managing expansion because there’s more demand for new teams than the OHDJXH ZDQWV WR IXOÀO But I think the real challenge that is in front of us now is how we improve WKH SURGXFW RQ WKH ÀHOG , PHDQ world class players are symptomatic of the problem, but even our average players are not as good as they need to be, technically. And a lot of that, we believe, comes back to the fact that the focus in youth soccer in the United States is on winning games, it’s not on developing players, so there’s an overreliance on physical qualities. The game tends to be very direct. Do you think that the dots are well connected between organisations like yours, US Soccer and MLS to achieve that goal?

No, I don’t think that the dots are very well connected at all. I think that the federation is too linear in its thinking, LQ P\ YLHZ ,W¡V ORRNLQJ VSHFLĂ€FDOO\ DW the top level of players. It’s trying to identify them at an age at which we know there’s tons of research that tells us that nobody knows how they’re going to develop athletically. I think it’s a mistake to approach it that way. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with trying to create the right environment for players that are deemed promising but what they haven’t done at all is devote attention to improving the overall environment. If you want to produce great players, you have to create an environment in which all players have a chance to become the best they can be. Because nobody, anywhere, is smart enough to know at the age of 11 or 12 who’s going to be able to become a world class athlete. So anyway, no, I don’t WKLQN WKHUH¡V VXIĂ€FLHQW FRQQHFWLRQ 0/6 has focused a lot of attention on their 34 | www.soccerex.com

La Liga is hoping to use its partnership with US Club Soccer to establish a stronger presence in the US

own academies but I don’t think that they are approaching this holistically enough. They’re not working closely enough with organisations like ours. Once again, they tend to look just YHU\ VSHFLĂ€FDOO\ DW WKH WDVN LQ KDQG ZLWK their academies, and instead of thinking about, well, we get these players from somewhere, we’re not giving birth to them, so why don’t we try and improve the environment they’re coming from. That just doesn’t seem to occur to anybody, so it’s a little frustrating, frankly. But we’re trying to address it by trying to create a better environment, at least in our organisation, and hopefully keeping more players in the game longer – as the Icelanders have accomplished – and providing a better environment for all players so that we give them a chance to realise their potential. If we can do that successfully, we will HQG XS EHLQJ VXUSULVHG :H¡OO Ă€QG RXW that some kids, who when they were 11 or 12 we dismissed them, thinking that they weren’t very athletic, they end up being special. Are the conditions the same in the women’s and girls’ game?

I actually do think that some of the abstract conditions are the same. There’s still much too much emphasis in the women’s game on winning, as opposed to development. If you look at our women’s team, you know, we’re the best team in the world but if you look at us when we play against, say, Japan or France, their women are better, technically. We still succeed because our women have been brought up in an environment from a very early age where they are taught

to be extremely competitive. So they’re not afraid of that. They are absolutely committed to doing what it takes to win. You know, on the women’s side, we really started ahead of most of the world. We didn’t spot the world 100 years of development and then try to catch up, like we’ve done on the men’s side, so it’s a completely different challenge. But even on the women’s side I do think that we need to do a better job of training individual players to become better soccer players, and we need to focus less on creating great women’s soccer teams at young ages and more on creating great women’s soccer players. Where can soccer go in America? What’s the target?

I think our hope is that, eventually, it becomes, I don’t want to say the number one sport in the country, because I’m not sure exactly how you’d measure that anyway, but we certainly believe that we can get to the level of prominence that, say, baseball and football in particular enjoy. Basketball is at a slightly lower level, hockey is at a lower level still. But we think that we have the ability. You know, the last two World Cups, we KDG ODUJHU WHOHYLVLRQ DXGLHQFHV IRU WKH ÀQDOV than we had for the World Series baseball games. And the US games in the last World Cup – even though they were played early in the afternoon in the summer, which is about as bad a time as you could possibly put a television programme on – they RXWGUHZ WKH JDPHV LQ WKH 1%$ ÀQDOV 6R we’re well on our way and I think if we FDQ VWDUW WR À[ WKH SOD\LQJ SDUW RI LW RQ the men’s side, that will only accelerate our development commercially.

FANTASY SPORTS TAKES A GAMBLE ON FOOTBALL In late 2015, scandal hit the daily fantasy sports gaming industry, leaving its two biggest players, DraftKings and FanDuel, on choppy waters. 2016 has so far failed to offer calmer tides, as business continues to be plagued by regulatory and financial woes. As DraftKings’ Premier League launch sees it move into international territory for the first time, Adam Nelson takes a look at what the future holds for the beleaguered sector.

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DraftKings has partnerships with over 50 professional sports teams in the United State, and is now hoping to build a similar profile in the UK

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DraftKings’ football games use Opta data to provide players with a detailed, in-depth experience

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“How many industries have come out of nowhere and grown the way daily fantasy has?”

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Haas (left) and Kalish (right) at the announcement of DraftKings’ partnership with Watford FC

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FULL PINT As a long-term sponsor of both the Uefa European Championship and the England national team, Carlsberg is set for a big summer. Paul Morris, the brand and sponsorship manager at Carlsberg UK, takes Eoin Connolly through the beer brand’s plans.

When you’re building a campaign around a tournament, particularly as a beer brand, how challenging is it to cut through?

I think sponsors are getting ever more clever, more sophisticated, so I guess it is harder. But then we always challenge ourselves at Carlsberg to be probably the best, and pull that through in everything we’re doing. So this campaign is particularly different in terms of the way it’s constructed, the use of media – the use RI LQĂ XHQFHUV DQG GLJLWDO D ORW PRUH ² EXW also just doing things that are different. So a lot of stunt activity, for example, which is framed around ‘surprise and delight’, one example being the way we’re going to give our tickets away. Yes, we’ll do some traditional media placements but a lot of our tickets will be given away through stunts where we surprise and delight people through the campaign, which is called, ‘If Carlsberg did substitutions‌’ We’re encouraging people to make substitutions ahead of the tournament, whether that be in the workplace – substituting timesheets for team sheets – or you’re putting the DIY off at the weekend and you’re substituting chores for cheers, or at the end of the Premier League season you’re going to substitute your club for your country. It’s substituting the ordinary for the extraordinary and that’s delivered, then, in a range of different activities. When did the planning for Euro 2016 start for you?

Probably the back end of June last year ZDV RXU À UVW UHDO FRQYHUVDWLRQ ZKHUH we had two or three different concepts that were on the table. But substitutes came out as the strong favourite, I think, just because of its simplicity, really. Just talking to people in the early days of the campaign, people were already thinking about their own substitutions that they 40 | www.soccerex.com

Paul Morris, brand and sponsorship manager at Carlsberg UK, poses with the Euro 2016 trophy

could make. And it was very adaptable as well. So whether it’s an on-trade customer we’re talking to or an off-trade customer, or obviously doing stunt activity to England fans, it just linked really well – and club for country came out really strong as a good substitution but there are many more within the campaign. But I think the simplicity of it is really strong and people then can see how that transfers from ‘if Carlsberg did substitutions’ to ‘probably the best’, because whatever we do in terms of substitutions has to be for the better. How much coordination is there throughout that process with Carlsberg at headquarters, and the European campaign that they will be putting together?

We work really closely because there’s a global campaign, which is more kind of promotion and competition-led – things like fan voting for man of the match and goal of the tournament. And that works on a global level. They’re running a big competition called ‘Play on pitch’ DURXQG WKH VHPL Ă€ QDO ZKLFK ZH¡UH DOVR buying into because obviously the UK is an important global market. But because of the strength of the UK market, because of what we’ve delivered in previous tournaments, and also because we sponsor the England team. We’ve got licence, then, to deliver our own campaign in the UK, which is outside of what the global team do, but we naturally work closely with them because they hold the relationship with Uefa. I hold the relationship with the FA but things

like approvals and stuff like that, you have to work both channels. How much are you conscious of what other Carlsberg units are doing in other countries during the competition? Is that somewhere that you want to have some kind of unity of purpose or do you want to avoid doubling up?

On the global platform activity, then yes. There’s conferences where we’ve met and discussed different things across different markets, and I think if you sit on the global team then you want all of your markets activating the broader campaign. But as I mentioned before, in the UK we’ve got a licence to do our own stuff which is bespoke to the UK, so it talks about the tournament but really the campaign is about reigniting that passion and support for the England team. Is there any differentiation for you between the pitch you’re making to England fans and the pitch you might be making as a sponsor of the tournament to consumers in the UK? Or are the two of a piece?

If we’re talking to England fans then our activity is very much about supporting the team, showing our passion to the team, giving opportunities back to fans to engage, go to matches, etc. So I think that’s really important. But we have tried with this campaign to also have a broader approach. We’re substituting our standard packaging and packs in the off-trade for limited edition Euro packs. In the past we would have probably had England players on packs and we’ve not done that this time, we’ve kept that fairly generic and fairly tournament-led. Obviously, if the England team didn’t perform well then we’ve still got longevity, but there’s also an acknowledgement that Wales have TXDOLĂ€HG DQG 1RUWKHUQ ,UHODQG DQG therefore we need to acknowledge that as a UK brand and obviously them being home nation countries. So it kind of works on both levels, really. We’ve got the broader communication around the tournament and things like idents around matches, broadcast sponsorship we get which will be very much Carlsberg and ‘Probably the best’; LED advertising around the pitches which we’ll base around ‘Probably’. That talks to

Former England striker Teddy Sheringham is a brand ambassador and spokesman for Carlsberg

WKH EURDGHU DXGLHQFH EXW WKHQ WKH VSHFLĂ€F stuff around the campaign that we’re doing around substitutes, I think, drills a bit deeper to the football fan. But we do acknowledge that more people in the general population get excited around tournaments and want to be a part of things. That’s why we’ll be giving out 10,000 point of sale kits to pubs across the country to go in and brand and dress them up; to make them destination places where people are going to watch the football. Or we’ll be working with the likes of Asda doing some big in-store activations to try and drive big occasions like outdoor barbecues and that to make occasions around the big football matches across the whole of the tournament. Where do elements like the trophy tour you’ve been doing for the last few days ďŹ t into the broader strategy?

They kind of bridge the two, really. The trophy is an asset we have as a sponsor, and it’s going to other countries as well as the UK, but we were keen to have it in the UK. We knew there’d be a lot of interest in it. I don’t recall it ever coming KHUH DSDUW IURP (XUR VR LW¡V WKH Ă€UVW time we’ve actually taken it on a tour. It’s something we wanted to give back to our customers, so we’ve got two on-trade FXVWRPHUV ZKR DUH JRLQJ WR EHQHĂ€W ZLWK

the trophy being in their pub. We’ve given the trophy back to fans in Cardiff with Ian Rush and Teddy Sheringham on Wembley Way. And then we’ve done some traditional media interviews but also some different VWXII ZLWK LQà XHQFHUV VR D QHZ NLQG of area of media, really, where we give LQà XHQFHUV WKH RSSRUWXQLW\ WR HQJDJH with the trophy and create their own content so they can talk to their own audience, which is probably a bit more engaged and a bit more targeted than stuff we’ve done before. Tell us a bit more about the inuencer side. Who are some of the people you’re working with and what’s your thinking?

There are two that spring to mind: the Copa 90 guys, who are basically football YouTubers who have their own channel. We’ve worked with them in the past, and we’ve done some stuff with the trophy with them. Again, massive reach, real football-targeted audience. And the other platform is Spencer FC – again, another YouTuber. He’s got 1.3 million followers now and we’re doing a series of seven YLGHRV ZLWK 6SHQFHU +H GLG KLV ÀUVW one with the trophy last night, using his Twitter platform to give away tickets to see England, and he’ll be going away to the Euros with Carlsberg and doing some SOCCEREXPRO | 41

I think we’ve always been mindful and respectful of other sponsors within their own territory and their own assets and rights. But we know it happens and that’s where we work really closely with Uefa. In terms of switching, I suppose availability of your brand is really important. Distribution, so you naturally want to make sure that as many of the bars and pubs and clubs around the country are stocking Carlsberg before the tournament. The activation we do in store, the taking over we do of seasonal aisles, front of store promotion, so you see our branding and our packaging is all created around the tournament. People want to feel part of things so that’s a real key driver in terms of the look and feel of our packaging in store. Again, I mentioned the point of sale in pubs, so we make sure that pubs are decorated with Carlsberg. We know some people are loyal to their brands of drink. We also know a lot of people aren’t and are prepared to switch, and we need to capitalise on that.

YouTubers Copa 90 and The Football Republic are among the inuencers Carlsberg is working with

fan reporting as well to give a reactive piece to what it’s like to be over in France with the England fans. So again, we’re using his channel to push out content that he delivers, but we obviously pull through Carlsberg references and branding with it. How does the process of putting together a campaign with an inuencer differ from the traditional brand ambassador relationship with someone like Teddy Sheringham or Ian Rush?

I think it’s pretty similar but there’s more complexity. We need to think about the audience more. So we can do a contract for a general PA appearance for someone like Teddy, where we would get Teddy for a certain time, and we would brand Teddy, and Teddy would talk credibly about football. He’s a legend, so you’re naturally going to appeal to a football audience and have credibility, and he’d become a spokesman for your brand. , WKLQN ZLWK WKH LQĂ XHQFHUV LW¡V VOLJKWO\ more complex. You need to think about the audience because you’re not quite sure where that content’s going – so things like 42 | www.soccerex.com

ensuring that 75 per cent of their audience is over 18 is a really big one for us, because obviously being an alcohol brand we need to go through those kind of checks. And WKH UXOH LV JHWWLQJ WLJKWHU ZLWK LQà XHQFHUV DV well in terms of sponsored references on the back of videos and that kind of stuff. But it’s a growing and emerging area. I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules but we work really closely with our legal team to make sure that we’re complying with the guidelines set out by the Advertising Standards Agency [ASA] and things like that. You’re long-term sponsors of Uefa and long-term sponsors of England, but there’s so much noise around events on the scale of the Euros from brands who aren’t sponsors. Firstly, how do you deal with that and secondly, as a beer brand, how do you attract people who will be drinking beer but wouldn’t normally drink Carlsberg?

7KH ÀUVW WKLQJ LV SUREDEO\ DURXQG DPEXVK , WKLQN WKH ÀUVW WKLQJ WR VD\ LV that we don’t do it and haven’t done it.

It’s a sponsorship that Carlsberg have done before. What would represent a successful tournament for Carlsberg and for this campaign and where do you want to do things that you’ve not done before?

I think we’ve got three areas that you really measure on. All the social stuff we’ve talked about is quite easily measureable in terms of watches, likes, etc, so there’ll be a big number that we’ll want to place on those. The whole range of activity we’ve got will be really LQWHUHVWLQJ WR PHDVXUH 1DWXUDOO\ \RX¡OO want to increase your sales. Again, it’s not a dead number on it but you expect to see an uplift in sales. England having a good tournament would massively affect that. We’ve not had that over the last few tournaments so if England can progress to the latter stages that would really help. That said, being a tournament sponsor you can leverage it over a longer period of WLPH 7KDW¡V RQH RI WKH EHQHĂ€WV RI ERWK And then we also do market research measuring things like consideration levels – are people more prepared to drink Carlsberg because they know we’re a sponsor of the England team and a sponsor of the Euros versus those who don’t. Brand measures and metrics, we’ll measure post the tournament just to evaluate the return on the investment.

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FUTURE VIEW Technology is helping to change the nature of major sporting arenas, from the passive terraces of old to smart, adaptable, connected hubs which are active all the week around, not just on matchdays. Rod Sheard, senior principal at stadium architecture and design ďŹ rm Populous, gives Adam Nelson the rundown on how technology is driving the industry into the future in football and beyond.

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t a basic level, the primary demands of sports arenas have not changed since the earliest recorded sporting events. From gladiatorial contests in Rome’s Colosseum to the similar – if marginally less violent – battle of brawn between Anthony Joshua and Charles Martin in London’s O2 Arena, such venues’ main purpose has always been fairly straightforward: to provide a large audience with a vantage point to watch the sporting action. Though that fundamental mission is unaltered, advancing technologies are transforming the modern stadium at an incredible pace. Some of these are simple developments which allow a stadium to perform its main duties better – such as moving roofs, smart LED lighting and intelligent climate control – while others are transforming the very concept of what a sporting venue can be. The relationship between sport and technology has never been an easy one, however, and new media technologies such as the internet and mobile devices are threatening the stadium experience as much as others are enhancing it. The challenge for stadium designers is to strike a compromise that ensures the seamless integration of technology into venues. What exactly is it, then, that stadium operators in the 21st century are looking for? “That’s a more complex question than you might think!â€? says Rod Sheard, senior principal at architecture and GHVLJQ Ă€UP 3RSXORXV ZKR KDV ZRUNHG on stadiums and sporting venues worldwide including the Olympic Stadiums in London and Sydney, the new Wembley Stadium, Ascot Racecourse and the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. “There’s no general trend toward one area. It depends on the country you’re talking about, and 44 | www.soccerex.com

the sport you’re talking about. Different technology, different developments affect different sports in different ways. It’s moving at such a rate that it’s almost impossible to predict what stadiums will want next week, let alone next year.â€? Sheard was one of the architects who designed the retractable roof on Wimbledon’s Centre Court, a project which he sees as a prime example of the not-always-natural intersection between technology and stadium architecture where, more often than not, compromise is a key word and necessity frequently is the mother of invention. “Wimbledon is a good example because until we started working on the Centre Court, putting a roof over that, everybody said, ‘Well that isn’t possible because of that natural grass,’â€? he explains. “There’d been a moving roof over the Rod Laver Arena [a hard court] for the Australian Open, but nothing over a grass court that was very successful. And when we designed it, we designed it from a point of view of Ă€QGLQJ D VROXWLRQ WKDW VXLWHG :LPEOHGRQ and suited their particular site and their particular conditions. “What we didn’t know at the time was there actually wasn’t a material available that would do what we were trying to make it do. Fortunately we didn’t know that, so we just ploughed on. Over the

Spectators are now actively encouraged to get online during games to enhance the experience

12-month period when we developed the design, it effectively came down to that it had to have certain physical qualities of the amount of light it would let through, UV protection, all those sorts of things. But most importantly it had to fold, because we came up with this idea that’s almost an umbrella which folds out and then folds back again. The problem with all fabrics up to that point in time was that you couldn’t fold them, or you could but after ten or 20 times they’d crack. “And then just by absolute sheer coincidence, fortuitously, during that 12-month period, unbeknown of what we were designing for the Wimbledon Centre Court, Tenara [a manufacturer of architectural fabrics] developed a fabric that allowed folding. So it was a kind of convergence of fortune, of our designing a solution that suited Wimbledon and by sheer accident a manufacturer developing the technological solution that could PDWFK WKDW VSHFLĂ€FDWLRQ Âľ When Andy Murray faced Stanislas :DZULQND LQ LQ WKH Ă€UVW PDWFK to take place entirely under the roof, it was thanks to this serendipitous coming together of the architect’s vision and the development in the technology world. “That’s the perfect way that technology gets applied in sports facilities,â€? Sheard says. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work like that. Most commonly you come up with a design and there is nothing that can do it, and it takes some time to try and adopt the technology to allow it to happen – things like moving tiers on stands or moving roofs over stadiums and moving pitches to get them out of the way – all of that technology tends to have come along as a direct response of having an answer WR D FOLHQW¡V SUREOHP DQG WKHQ Ă€QGLQJ or adapting the technology to suit it. It’s very rare when the technology happens

The retractable roof on Wimbledon’s Centre Court, designed by Populous was completed following a timely technological development

to develop itself.â€? The one exception to this, he explains, is the biggest current technological trend dominating the minds of stadium operators and designers everywhere: wireless internet technologies and the so-called ‘connected stadium’. Since the emergence of satellite television and, particularly, the rise of high-speed broadband connections and mobile devices, the question of how to persuade punters to attend live matches in stadiums at all, rather than stay at home and watch any game they care to choose from in the comfort of their living rooms, has been an ongoing concern of clubs, rights holders and stadium operators. The solution reached in recent times has been to embrace, rather than Ă€JKW WKH SXEOLF¡V GHVLUH IRU FRQVWDQW connection. For Stadium Australia, the venue built for Sydney’s Olympic *DPHV LQ 3RSXORXV LQVWDOOHG Ă€EUH RSWLF FDEOHV WKURXJKRXW WKH HQWLUH arena, so every seat could be connected directly to the network. It was one of the earliest examples of an attempt to offer internet access to an in-stadium audience, at a time before smartphones and tablets, when the only devices

capable of accessing this would have been laptop computers. “Of course, we thought we were being cutting-edge at the time!� laughs Sheard. “Since then, wireless technology, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, all the rest of it, has taken over. So we’ve never used the full capacity of a wired network. “The question is: how do you compete with television, with the internet?� he adds. “That’s the key thing. You sit at home, you watch sport, you get lots of camera angles, you get lots more statistics and activity that you wouldn’t get at the match. The trouble is, you’ve paid a lot of money to go to the match and you’ve gone to all the trouble to get off your backside to do it. So it’s been important for the last 20 years as to how you impart a similar level of information and activity to the people that have gone to the trouble to go to the match. “We’ve looked at putting screens in the backs of seats, we installed some of those in the Colonial Stadium [now the Etihad Stadium in Melbourne] and they were good, but at the same time you can’t compete with a person’s handheld L3KRQH WKDW EDVLFDOO\ FDQ FRQQHFW ZLWK anything in the world and get a signal from anywhere in the world.�

The most observable technological trend of the past few years, according to Sheard, has come as “most of the upmarket sporting events have now realised that they can’t resist thatâ€?. Many major events and stadiums are now attempting to use the march of technology to their advantage, commissioning their own bespoke Wi-Fi networks tailored to their fans’ needs and delivering access to valuable data, and creating specialised apps that offer unique features when used on the stadium’s network. Sheard again gives Wimbledon as an example of an event which is ahead of the curve in this area. The British Grand 6ODP¡V RIĂ€FLDO DSS DOORZV WKH XVHU WR WXQH in to live streams of other matches going on at the championship, so, explains Sheard, “You can go to Wimbledon and know everything that’s going on, you can watch the events at number one court while you’re sitting there in Centre Court.â€? Fans are actively encouraged to engage with the event online as well as off, reducing the gap between the live experience and the living room. “The problem with all this technology,â€? Sheard explains, “is that even a modest stadium takes three to SOCCEREXPRO | 45

Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium will make use of modern technology to be as exible as possible

four years to go from beginning to opening day and the big ones can take considerably longer than that, so the development period of technology is so quick compared to the speed with which you can build these that it’s completely illogical to think that you can start on day one and say, ‘I know where technology is going to be in Ă€YH \HDUV¡ WLPH ¡ ,W¡V MXVW QRW SRVVLEOH So what you’ve got to do is build in Ă H[LELOLW\ \RX¡YH JRW WR EXLOG LQWR WKH design and the planning of the whole EXLOGLQJ WKH DELOLW\ WR DGDSW DQG Ă€W whatever comes along.â€? ‘Flexibility’ has become a key word in more ways than one for stadium designers. Not only is it crucial in terms of allowing a venue to adapt to future needs, but operators and owners are LQFUHDVLQJO\ ORRNLQJ WR EXLOG Ă H[LELOLW\ into stadiums’ construction, conceiving of them from the start as multi-sport arenas as a way of generating hugely increased revenues. The planned new stadium of English 3UHPLHU /HDJXH VLGH 7RWWHQKDP +RWVSXU IRU LQVWDQFH ZKLFK 3RSXORXV KDV worked on, has been designed from the bottom-up as a multi-purpose venue, with the club having signed a deal with the National Football League (NFL) for matches to be played there from 2018. The soccer pitch at the stadium ZLOO EH UHWUDFWDEOH UHYHDOLQJ DQ DUWLĂ€FLDO turf pitch underneath to be used for American football and other revenuegenerating events such as live music 46 | www.soccerex.com

shows, meaning both minimal disruption to the venue’s primary function as Spurs’ home ground, and also that it can be fully optimised for both sports. 7KH 6WDGH 3LHUUH 0DXUR\ LQ /LOOH )UDQFH one of the venues built for the country’s hosting of Uefa Euro 2016, goes even IDUWKHU LQ LWV TXHVW IRU Ă H[LELOLW\ 7KH pitch is not just retractable but capable of splitting in two, with the main 50,000-seater VWDGLXP DEOH WR EH UHFRQĂ€JXUHG LQWR D more intimate, 30,000-seater indoor arena, providing two different sporting venues in the same space. “Technology does come along and helps that,â€? says Sheard. “But it’s really the operation of the venue that makes it more of a challenge, because every sport has its own idiosyncrasies when it comes to how the media operate, how the entertainment operates, the type of people that go, so all of that stuff behind the scenes is rather more GLIĂ€FXOW WR FRSH ZLWK WKDQ MXVW PRYLQJ a pitch out of the way or putting up a bigger screen. “The O2 Arena, for instance, will take Adele one night and then a basketball match the following day, and that’s a big changeover. And the technology has made WKDW HDVLHU OLJKWHU DQG PRUH HIĂ€FLHQW LED lights are much lighter and easier to manoeuvre than old-fashioned lighting, for instance, and you can have machinery which does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. But it’s more about the way you conceive of the venue as a multi-purpose space than it is the technology driving

those kinds of changes.â€? Writing in SportsPro magazine’s March edition, Emma Dicks, communications director at retail PDUNHWLQJ DJHQF\ +5* GLVFXVVHG WKH need for modern stadiums to take this even further and transcend their basic remits as sporting venues. Dicks urged stadium operators to take their cues from outlet malls and retail venues, EHFRPLQJ IXOO\ Ă HGJHG FRPPXQLW\ hubs with opportunities for fans to shop and meet for coffee, expanding their revenue streams away from the obvious matchday crowds. Technology has again played its part enabling this, explains Sheard, allowing architects to do more with less, building bigger and bigger amounts of space into venues. “When we did Stadium Australia, it was a million square feet of space, of concourse area where people could buy things and circulate and get a drink and go to the toilet, and everybody said, Âś+RO\ PDFNHUHO D PLOOLRQ VTXDUH IHHW that’s crazy big!’â€? he says. “And then when we did Wembley, it’s two million square feet. And we’re now looking at stadiums, particularly in the States, where it’s bigger than that. So the scale of space that people need and desire these days to circulate to get a drink to sit in lounges to have coffee with their mates, you just need more space. But the beauty of that is that it’s revenue-producing, it actually returns something to the stadium owners. If you can justify it in practical terms, then generally it stacks up in Ă€QDQFLDO WHUPV Âľ Although the talk inevitably gravitates toward revenue – that, after all, is what allows stadiums to be built and what keeps them in operation – Sheard stresses the point that new technology in VWDGLXPV PXVW Ă€UVW DQG IRUHPRVW DOZD\V be used to enhance the experience of the visitor, to continue ensuring that the best possible way to experience any sport is in WKH Ă HVK “Once you strip everything else away, you’re left with two key things: the atmosphere, the ambience in the stadium, and the standard of facilities that you get around the stadium,â€? he says. “If you’re not focusing on those things, you’re not focused on the customer at the end of it all. The atmosphere and the ambiance in the

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HawkEye technology has made the LED displays themselves an integral part of the action

stadium is a much more nebulous thing, a lot of it is just gut feel and intuition; it’s more art than science to some extent. But technology can guide you. We know that the shape of the roof affects the bounce-back of the crowd noise, we know that the closing the roof makes a huge difference. “When we did Cardiff Arms Park [the home stadium of the Cardiff Blues Pro12 rugby union team], everybody wondered why you’d want a moving roof over a rugby stadium, on the basis that rugby is an outdoor, rough-and-tumble sport. But there’s no doubt that when that roof closes, the atmosphere inside that bowl changes 48 | www.soccerex.com

dramatically and it’s just spectacular the difference, it’s outstanding. So all of those things change the atmosphere; technology can really change the spectator experience.� Sheard sounds a particular note of caution on the increasing trend toward “bigger and bigger� LED screens in stadiums which, he says, serve a valuable purpose but can also distract and detract from the live experience, if people are spending more time watching the screen than the pitch. “The ones we’re putting into stadiums in the States are just ridiculous sizes, we’ve almost got to the stage where people are realising

that it’s intruding on the actual live event,â€? Sheard says. “I think in Europe and the UK we’re less enamoured with the massive screens, although they’re still an important part of any event space. I think it has its place, it informs, it brings a certain amount of excitement to the event, there’s no doubt that the screens that we put into the centre court at Wimbledon has changed the dynamic. With Hawk-Eye judging whether the ball is in or out, the screens become the actual event.â€? On how stadium design and technology can combine to create a unique live experience, Sheard recounts an incident during the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, in the Olympic Stadium on which Populous worked. “I remember at one stage during RQH RI WKH PHQ¡V P Ă€QDOV -RQQLH Peacock, who was the British entrant, was warming up, and the crowd started to chant his name: ‘Peacock! Peacock! Peacock!’â€? he recalls. “And whether it was putting him off or whether he felt it was putting his fellow athletes off, all KH GLG ZDV SXW KLV Ă€QJHU WR KLV PRXWK to say ‘quiet’, and the whole stadium fell quiet instantly. “And it was just extraordinary that connection between that audience of 80,000 people or so and this one guy on the running track, it was just the most amazing connection. And part of it is EHFDXVH \RX JHW ELJ VFUHHQV DQG \RX Ă€OO the screens with the athlete’s faces, but it’s also that connection that is so critical to why people actually go to the trouble of going to live sport. “As stadium designers,â€? Sheard concludes, “the thing that we can’t ever lose sight of is that there is always an alternative, there’s an alternative to them going to that particular event, and there’s an alternative of them just staying at home and watching it on television. So you will always have much more options than actually going to all the trouble of going to a live event, so what we can’t ever lose sight of is that the live event has got to be better, it’s got to be more exciting, it’s got to be absolutely thrilling to keep people coming to. And that’s all about atmosphere and ambience, giving them good facilities, and that way, as long as the sport is competitive, they’ll keep coming back.â€?

Making a connection

A

sk a general consumer about Wi-Fi connectivity and they will more than likely grumble about rising prices and point you towards a temperamental modem that collects dust on their mantelpiece. But ask a stadium developer the very same question, and you’ll get a very different answer. For major stadiums, Wi-Fi connectivity opens up a wealth of opportunities. Stadium-wide Wi-Fi, at its simplest, is a tool to keep fans online during matchdays, a means of keeping them connected to the internet-centric lifestyle many lead. But recent developments in the technology are giving clubs, and fans, so much more than just convenience. Once developers overcome the frankly monumental challenges of building a wireless internet connection strong enough to reach every corner of a stadium and survive the strain of 60,000 matchday fans, then clubs can start to capitalise on the considerable added value that managing a closed online network can bring. One of the most well-developed examples of this is Celtic Park, the Glasgow-based home of Scottish Premiership champions Celtic. In partnership with London-based firm Stadia Solutions, the club developed a stadium-wide wireless network, entitled ‘CelticLive’, alongside a complimentary mobile application. When fans enter the stadium and join the Wi-Fi network, they are asked to enter a brief collection of details to register, and are given the option to download the official club app. Through the application, the club are then able to monitor and dictate the content that fans use while hooked up to the Wi-Fi. They can deliver real-time content on matchdays, including tailored social streams and breaking news, direct to fans’ phones, handpicked based on the details each fan used to register. On top of this, the app brings countless opportunities for the club’s corporate partners. Irish cider brand Magners, which has been Celtic’s shirt sponsor since 2013,

Celtic’s new app offers benefits to the club, their fans and their commercial partners

added branding to around 180 pages on the CelticLive app. Its logo features on loading pages and man of the match voting screens, with direct links to the firm’s social media profiles. Since adding this package to its partnership, the company achieved a 13 per cent rise in Twitter followers as a direct result of the app, with around 1,603 new followers in the first two months of implementation. Additionally, the app has helped the club fight against the growing issue of social media-fuelled broadcast piracy and, consequently, boosted the relationship they has with their broadcast partners. The Wi-Fi restricts people from using apps such as Vine and Periscope, both of which are used to live stream footage, while they are at the ground, ultimately delaying any personal social media broadcasting, and ensuring official partners can get there first. Arguably, however, the most progressive use of the technology comes in its data development. With users registering upon first use, Celtic

are able to collate and then monitor fans’ activity on matchdays. The club are able to study the demographics of their fans, and can build up profiles based on their different behaviours, meaning they can tailor both content and marketing directly to them. Similarly, and perhaps more impressively, they can build up detailed maps of real-time footfall around the ground, meaning they can target concourse advertising in specific areas to specific people, and can monitor crowd safety better. So far, this remains the most mature example of extensive stadium connectivity in the UK, but it looks set to become the norm over coming years. Earlier this month, the English Football League, which encompasses the second, third, and fourth professional tiers of the English professional game, signed a major seven-year deal with IntechnologyWiFi, a Yorkshire-based firm which delivers a similar product to that of Stadia Solutions. The deal will see IntechnologyWiFi install complete, high-capacity stadium Wi-Fi at all 72 Football League clubs. Each club will also have an official fan application built for them, powered by the Wi-Fi, where they can dictate the content delivered to their fans, much like CelticLive. Clubs will have their own, closed social media streams where fans can make personal profiles and interact on matchdays, and the apps will receive regular in-play betting promotions from Sky Bet, the Football League’s title sponsor and official betting partner. While Celtic remain the early adopters, the Football League’s deal looks set to propel the technology in to the mainstream. Regardless of how long that may take, it looks certain to be a form of stadium technology that is grounded in the present. Much has been made of an overuse of mobile phones at live events, but in these advanced Wi-Fi systems, clubs and sponsors alike can use society’s overreliance on technology to their benefit. TL

SOCCEREXPRO | 49

PLAYERS’ LOUNGE

Mike Egerton/EMPICS Sport

Ben Thatcher at his final club, Ipswich Town. The former Premier League player is now an agent, focused on helping current football stars to prepare for their future careers

50 | www.soccerex.com

BEN THATCHER After breaking into the ďŹ rst team of south London football club Millwall aged just 17, Ben Thatcher played most of the rest of his career in England’s Premier League at clubs such as Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City and Manchester City. Since retiring in 2010 he has worked as a player representative, ďŹ rst for Select Sport, and now at M&C Saatchi Merlin. As he explains to Adam Nelson, the agency is developing a “cradle to graveâ€? approach to representation, helping players plan and move into their post-football careers.

How did you get involved with M&C Saatchi?

Almost a year ago I came in to work with Richard [Thompson, chairman at M&C Saatchi Merlin]. I’ve known him for a number of years. He mentioned that he was interested in expanding into the football side of things, and he wanted my opinion on some companies I’d worked with or knew about. He asked my opinion about a couple of boutique companies, I gave him my opinion and said, “Maybe not that one, maybe have a chat with him, I’m not sure about him,â€? that type of advice. A few months later he decided that he wanted to do it himself, very slowly, organically and quietly, and it went from there. , Ă€QLVKHG P\ FDUHHU DW ,SVZLFK 7RZQ – I was 34 with one knee, basically. I went to work for Select Sports almost immediately, I had a chat with someone who said, “Come work for six months, see how you like it.â€? I’d done all my own contracts for pretty much the second half of my career, felt quite comfortable with it, enjoyed it, so I thought I’d give it a go and I think I ZDV WKHUH Ă€YH \HDUV EHIRUH , PRYHG WR M&C Saatchi. While you’re doing well, football takes care of itself. If you’re getting the results on the pitch, living right off the pitch, eating the right things, drinking

the right things, resting when you should rest, football becomes easier. Someone offers you a new contract, you’re happy, your family’s happy. It’s like, “You start there, we start here, and we might get somewhere that’s comfortable for both VLGHV Âľ ,W¡V QHYHU YHU\ GLIĂ€FXOW LI WKH FOXE wants a player. So that side of things I enjoyed, I GLGQ¡W Ă€QG LW GLIĂ€FXOW $V D \RXQJ SOD\HU , WKLQN LW¡V GLIĂ€FXOW \RX QHHG D EXIIHU LW¡V GLIĂ€FXOW WR KDYH WKDW UHODWLRQVKLS where a manager may lean on you a little bit and take advantage of certain things. But I’ve always found myself quite comfortable, I brought my father LQ VRPHWLPHV DQG KDG D Ă€QDQFLDO DGYLVHU who helped with bits of people but I generally found it quite comfortable. In football you turn up, your kit’s rolled out, you’re told to eat breakfast at a certain time, coaching’s all set up, you’re told what time to turn up to travel.

Everything’s done for you, you don’t use your own brain for anything, you don’t ZULWH D OHWWHU DQG ZKHQ \RX¡YH Ă€QLVKHG all of a sudden‌ some players have their agents open their post! They’re literally GRLQJ QRWKLQJ 7KHQ \RX Ă€QLVK DQG ZKDW are you going to do now? If you’re in that position where you can go and play golf for the rest of your life, then you’ve done very very well but for the majority of players that won’t be the case. We’re helping those who want to move into something different after they’re done. What is different about the ‘cradle-tograve’ approach at Saatchi?

It’s a bit different because football is different. The guiding these players need, it’s different from rugby and cricket because a big percentage there are privately schooled, well educated, with parents with their own businesses

“If you’re getting the results on the pitch and living right off the pitch, football becomes easier.� SOCCEREXPRO | 51

Thatcher’s playing career saw him spend 12 years in the Premier League and he is now using that experience to help current players plan for the future

who will be able to advise them a bit better than the working class families you get in football. I could tell you hundreds of stories of parents coming in where the dads don’t even talk about the boys, it’s about what they can get, and if the players aren’t guided properly, that money is wasted so easily. People will say, “Yeah, but these players are on UK£30,000, UK£40,000 per week, how can they waste that?” By the time you’ve taxed that, National Insurance, then they want their trainers, four cars, they’ll invest in their mate’s business, and it soon goes. Our job is just trying to manage

them. One of my lines is, “If you’re on UK£20,000 a week, you’ve got a nice lifestyle, you’re about to go up to UK£40,000 – keep your lifestyle the same and save the rest.” My advice would be, surround yourself with the right people, for a VWDUW ,W·V YHU\ GLIÀ FXOW WR H[SODLQ WR D kid at 17, 18, 19, “This is what you need to do,” because they think it’s going to last forever. You’ve got to live right. The money that’s available now, it’s very hard to tell a young single lad not to go out too much, but there’s the right times. You’ve got to eat right, you’ve got to train like a warrior.

Thatcher goes in for a tackle with Liverpool’s Danny Murphy during his time with Tottenham 52 | www.soccerex.com

What kind of successes have you had so far?

The scenarios would be that you’re looking after a player at, say, a Newcastle United. He’s playing well, there’s interest and another club has contacted you to say, “Would your client be interested in the move?” The two clubs speak, they agree a fee, probably for more money. But say the player’s a Newcastle fan, on maybe UK£30,000 a week, he’s been offered UK£45,000 somewhere else – would he be happier with a new contract at Newcastle? That might be the situation. Or it might be that a player isn’t certain and it’s your job to advise them on where you think would be best for them. Then you get the mercenary players who would go anywhere for more money and, rightly or wrongly, there’ll be arguments about that. But they’re looking at finishing and living another 40, 50, 60 years and they need the money and we can help them manage that. My biggest weakness at my old company would have been the commercial side. The football side is relatively simple: you meet where everyone’s happy. Then you look at the commercial side of things – the adverts, the ambassadorial roles, which is M&C Saatchi’s speciality, it’s what they do every day. And take someone like Jermaine Jenas, who I’m working with. If I have a meeting with a player I’ll

that now and watch Jermaine Jenas on Match of the Day, on Question Time, talking eloquently… You know, he’s a clever, clever boy. Not all footballers could do that, but it’s very natural, I could see him being a presenter and he’s now doing so well that he’s almost seen as the up-andcoming young pundit, if you like. He’s got a central contract at the BBC, he’s got other people employing him and really impressed with his work, and if you’re looking at players now at 32, 33 who are thinking about retiring and have earned

a lot of money from the game, they’ve seen your [Jamie] Carraghers, your [Gary] Nevilles, your Jamie Redknapps, earning a lot of money doing the Sky work and they think they can do it. But you don’t just turn up and do it, there’s a lot of training that goes on behind the scenes. And it’s great for me to have some proof in the pudding rather than just saying, “This is what we can do.” To be able to put that up there and say, “We’ve got Matthew Le Tissier on Sky Sports, Stuart Pearce is working in the media, Jermaine is out there, Jamie Redknapp,” it’s brilliant from that media side of things. So when I speak to a player and say, “When you’re finished your career, your agent, are you going to hear from him again?” Probably not. I can name a player here who is a very, very big name, the day he finished his football career he hasn’t spoken to his agent once. Not once. We like to say that we’re cradle to grave because once your career has finished, if you want to keep working, we’ll help you, we’ll advise you. If that’s the route you want to go down, we can help you. It’s about getting in front of the right people, and that’s the doors that Richard Thompson and the M&C Saatchi brand open up for us.

Tottenham Hotspur, in the 2002 League Cup final against Blackburn Rovers. Despite playing the full 90 minutes, Thatcher could not prevent Spurs’ 2-1 defeat. This would be the closest Thatcher would come to silverware in his 17-year career. The following year, Thatcher moved to Premier League rivals Leicester City but, after a single season, the club were relegated and Thatcher was once again on the move, this time to Manchester City. During his time with the Citizens, Thatcher was involved in a controversial clash with Portsmouth’s Pedro Mendes, which led to his receiving an eightgame immediate ban and a 15-game suspended ban for violent conduct.

After leaving City, Thatcher returned to south London for a spell with Charlton Athletic, though again suffered relegation from the Premier League, unable to affect their decline in his two seasons with the club. Thatcher finished his career with Ipswich Town, playing under former Manchester United midfield general Roy Keane. He retired at the age of 34 due to a persistent knee injury. Despite having played at youth level for England, Thatcher opted to play internationally for Wales, for whom he qualified through his grandmother. He earned seven caps in total for his adopted country, all of them coming in friendlies and Fifa World Cup qualifying matches in 2004.

Ben Thatcher: playing career Club

League appearances

Goals

1992–1996

Millwall

90

1

1996–2000

Wimbledon

86

0

2000–2003

Tottenham Hotspur

36

0

2003–2004

Leicester City

29

1

2004–2007

Manchester City

47

0

2007–2008

Charlton Athletic

22

0

2008–2010

Ipswich Town

20

0

Appearances

Goals

International career 1995–1997

England U21

4

0

2004–2005

Wales

7

0

say, “Look at Jermaine: an international player, played all of his career in the Premier League.” Every player thinks they’re better than they are, so they might not say it to me but they’ll be thinking, I was a better player than Jermaine, I’m a bigger name than him, look what they’ve done for him. He’s worked extremely hard at it, don’t get me wrong, but the training we’ve been able to give him, the meetings we’ve been able to set up, the people we’ve been able to put him in front of, and for a player to look at

Ben Thatcher

B

orn in Swindon, Wiltshire, Ben Thatcher was picked up as a youth player by south London club Millwall, and broke into their first team as a teenager, making over 100 appearances for the then-Division One side before the age of 21. Upon Millwall’s relegation to the third tier of English football in 1996, Thatcher transferred to Premier League club and fellow south Londoners Wimbledon FC. Though Wimbledon’s fortunes would take a turn for the worse, with their drop down the divisions and eventual move to Milton Keynes, Thatcher spent the next 12 years playing in England’s top division. His biggest moment came while playing with the club he joined immediately after Wimbledon,

SOCCEREXPRO | 53

COMPANY PROFILE

ON TRACK New solutions in player tracking and live streaming have revolutionised the way video is used in professional football but the beneďŹ ts have mostly been felt by an elite few. Now, through its unique and cost-effective products, Trackchamp is trying to bring these technologies to partners lower down the scale.

T

he use of video in football, both in terms of analysis and distribution, has advanced almost beyond recognition in the past decade. For the most part, however, the EHQHĂ€ FLDULHV RI WKDW KDYH EHHQ DW WKH HOLWH end of the sport. Now one company, Trackchamp, wants that to change. “It’s not targeted at the top end of the market; it’s a very distinct positioning, I believe, where we want to be,â€? says Trackchamp managing director Martin FĂźreder. “We are not offering it to the Premier Leagues and the Bundesligas of this world.â€? He adds: “It’s about the democratisation of football.â€? Formed as a joint venture between online betting company bwin and tracking technology specialist ChryonHego in 2012, Trackchamp offers products in two core areas. Firstly, there is the automatic video production proposition, which allows for costeffective yet high-quality live streaming with graphics statistics and can be run

by an individual operator. With new improvements planned to release in summer Trackchamp’s video quality will go beyond live-streams. Then there is data tracking, which uses ChyronHego’s Tracab image processing technology to capture data in 3D and can be allied to the TCoach data analysis tool. Different partners, FĂźreder says, have different needs, but Trackchamp has a range of solutions that can cater to WKHP ´:H DUH Ă H[LEOH WKHUH Âľ KH DGGV “but we are always trying to leverage as much as possible.â€? Parts of the system can also be LQWHJUDWHG LQWR D SDUWQHU¡V H[LVWLQJ VHW XS “It mainly works as a single system, but what we can do is on the one side we can feed our content into other systems, so if somebody already has something in place, we can provide video or data WR RWKHU WRROV Âľ ) UHGHU H[SODLQV ´2Q the other hand, we also have a video and data analysing tool so we can incorporate other content into our tool. It works

Martin FĂźreder, Trackchamp managing director

both ways, so we can basically integrate into something that is already there.â€? Among Trackchamp’s partners so far are smaller football federations like those on both sides of the Irish border – the Irish Football Association (IFA) and Northern Ireland Football League (NIFL), and the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) in the Republic – and the Jamaican Football Federation (JFF). It aims to help such organisations “bring the content and the data closer to the fansâ€? as well as broadening “the H[SRVXUH IRU WKHLU VSRQVRUVÂľ GHOLYHULQJ in short, “something that brings an advantage to all partiesâ€?. “And on the other hand,â€? FĂźreder adds, “there are companies where we would supply the content which they can then use for their products. This can be technology companies, this can be betting companies who stream match footage, IRU H[DPSOH EXW LW FDQ DOVR EH IDQWDV\ league organisers who want to enhance their product and integrate data into their engine. It’s varied: there are video portal publishers, even TV broadcasters, if they want to enhance their TV coverage with interesting data.â€?

To contact Trackchamp Call: +43 664 850 8101 Email: anze.gantar@trackchamp.com Website: www.trackchamp.com Fuereder hopes Trackhamp’s products can help to democratise the use of data in football 54 | www.soccerex.com

THE UPDATE Rangers goalkeeper Wes Foderingham leads the celebrations as his team beat bitter Glasgow rivals Celtic 5-4 on penalties in the Scottish Cup semi-ďŹ nal

Danny Lawson/PA Wire/Press Association Images

NEWS AND DEALS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

SOCCEREX PRO | 55

THE SCORE: FOOTBALL’S NEW CHINESE EMPIRE? Clubs in the Chinese Super League outspent those anywhere else in the world during the winter transfer window, bringing in the likes of Ezequiel Lavezzi and Alex Teixeira in an eye-catching spree. George Dudley looks into the reasons behind China’s sudden and striking emergence.

A

t the conclusion of the 2016 winter transfer window, the collective outlay of Chinese Super League (CSL) clubs, according to data released by Fifa’s Transfer Matching System (TMS), stood DW 86 PLOOLRQ ² D Ă€JXUH WKDW doesn’t include the undisclosed fee that took Argentinian international Ezequiel Lavezzi from Paris Saint-German to Hebei China Fortune. The CSL and its fast-developing clubs, to the wider world at least, appear to be nouveaux riche gate crashers to football’s top table of established leagues and historic teams. However, the acquisition of the league’s domestic rights by Ti’ao Power, backed by China Media Capital (CMC), made global expansion inevitable. The country’s new-found adoration for football has, in the main, stemmed from its president, Xi Jinping, and his longstanding aspiration for China to host – and even win – a Fifa World Cup. President Xi, an avid Manchester United fan, recognised that his aim to raise the quality of the league and in turn the national team could be achieved by harnessing the clout of China’s formidable private sector. At the helm of October’s state-backed rights acquisition was media magnate Li Ruigang, chairman of CMC, who is widely regarded as China’s answer to Rupert Murdoch. Putting up US$1.3 billion for the Chinese TV rights to the CSL, CMC outbid China’s largest national broadcasting network China Central 56 | www.soccerex.com

Television (CCTV), as well as Chinese rivals Great Sports and Guangdong TV. Global heavyweights Infront Sports & Media and IMG also showed an early interest in acquiring the rights. &0& &KLQD¡V Ă€UVW YHQWXUH FDSLWDO IXQG in media and entertainment, will own those rights under its Ti’ao Power brand until the end of the 2020 season. CMC began expanding its portfolio in mid-2015 when it partnered with Warner Bros to create Flagship Entertainment, a joint venture in which CMC holds 51 per cent, and spent US$400 million to attain a minor holding stake in City Football Group, the owner of football clubs Manchester City FC, New York City FC, Melbourne City FC and Yokohama F Marinos. The initial wave of transfers began with the usual suspects taking formation around a developing league with cash to spend: Hangzhou Greentown signed Australian international Tim Cahill, who is very much entering the autumn of his career, while renowned footballing mercenary Asamoh Gyan left Al Ain in oil-rich Abu Dhabi to join Shanghai SIPG.

China’s president Xi Jinping is a big sports fan

Few eyebrows were raised until Ramires, a Brazilian World Cup star DQG Ă€UVW WHDP UHJXODU DW &KHOVHD MRLQHG Jiangsu Suning for US$36.1million in January 2016. The move caused consternation around WKH ZRUOG EXW WKH PLGĂ€HOGHU¡V PRYH HDVW ZDV WKH Ă€UVW RI DQ DYDODQFKH RI WUDQVIHUV involving CSL clubs, in which the national transfer record was broken three times in ten days. Chinese clubs have now completed nine of the 25 most expensive transfers in history. Given the Chinese interest in world records – the Guinness World Records base in Beijing is vast – it is not an outrageous consideration to suppose that a domestic investor, together with a football club, would want to set a new global mark. The unique aspect of the recent transfer window is that it wasn’t an instance of naĂŻve owners being swindled by European clubs palming off unwanted, overpaid stars: Jackson MartĂ­nez, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Fredy GuarĂ­n, Gervinho and Ramires are all under 30 and in the primes of their respective careers. Alex Teixeira, 26, was transferred to Jiangsu Suning for an Asian record transfer fee of US$56.6 million. The transfer was all the more notable because the player’s former club Shakhtar Donetsk had turned down a lesser bid from Premier League side Liverpool just ZHHNV HDUOLHU ,W ZDV SHUKDSV WKH Ă€UVW instance of a Chinese club gazumping their more established European rivals.

AP/AP/Press Association Images

Brazilian star Ramires, a Uefa Champions League winner with Chelsea, joined Jiangsu Suning in January for what was then a Chinese record fee

Behind the outlandish transfer fees, there is still a slight mystery as to where is the money is actually coming from. Professor Simon Chadwick, the chair in Sport Business Strategy and Marketing at Coventry University Business School and the founder and director of Centre for the International Business of Sport (CIBS), believes that though there are many differing shareholders involved, the driving force in the sudden football boom is the Chinese state. “The peculiar model of state-led capitalism they have in China means that, essentially, when the government decrees that it wants to pursue a particular policy the expectation is that corporations and government, at provincial level, will engage in activity that supports and delivers upon the vision, in this particular case the president and sport,â€? says Chadwick. 3UHVLGHQW ;L LV WKH RVWHQVLEOH LQĂ XHQFHU in the swathes of investment in soccer from the communist state. However, in a country awash with billionaires and international industry, there are other powerbrokers looking to make money, gain prestige, and potentially curry political favour from football. The Dalian Wanda Group, China’s largest commercial property company, EHFDPH WKH Ă€UVW &KLQHVH FRPSDQ\ WR EH a main partner of Fifa in March 2016. The deal will run for 14 years, covering all

Fifa competitions up to and including the 2030 World Cup. Fifa partners are entitled to promote their association through branding and promotional activities in all territories around the world. With the vast resources of the company’s chairman Wang Jianlin – China’s richest man with a net worth reported by Forbes at US$30.8 billion – at its disposal, Wanda has spent heavily on sport in the past year. In January 2015 Wanda bought a 20 per cent stake in Spanish soccer club AtlĂŠtico Madrid, at a cost of around â‚Ź40 million (US$46.4 million). Not content with that, it also attained Infront Sports & Media in February 2015 for â‚Ź1.05 billion (US$1.2 billion) and the World Triathlon Corporation, which runs the Ironman brand, for US$650 million in August. “President Xi is arguably the most LQĂ XHQWLDO >SHUVRQ LQ &KLQHVH VRFFHU@ but with Wang Jianlin at the Wanda Corporation and Jack Ma – what he’s doing with his part ownership of Guangzhou Evergrande and also Alibaba Sports and Entertainment shows that they see sport as being part of a broader entertainment portfolio, they are using sports particularly football to drive the development of these business portfolios,â€? argues Chadwick. “There is a woman at CMC called Li 7RQJ LW LV YHU\ GLIĂ€FXOW WR VHH ZKR LV LQ

charge at CMC but Li Tong seems to EH YHU\ LQĂ XHQWLDO 7KH (YHUJUDQGH UHDO estate corporation, which obviously partowns Guangzhou, is the principal funder behind the Guangzhou soccer academy. “Xi, Ma and Wang are the three that really stand out for me.â€? 7KH VXGGHQ LQĂ X[ RI PRQH\ DQG KLJK level of player migration into the country has led to many observers believing that, should it continue, the CSL may become like the Premier League, where the national team is of secondary LPSRUWDQFH WR WKDW RI WKH DIĂ XHQW FOXEV To guard against that likelihood the CSL has placed strict limitations on overseas SOD\HUV ² Ă€YH RYHUVHDV SOD\HUV DUH allowed on each team, while the signing of foreign goalkeepers is outlawed – to protect the development of domestic players and the national side. Put simply, avaricious overseas players will not necessarily be able to join Chinese clubs because there will not be room in teams or squads for them. The Chinese Football Association (CFA) will be hoping that the combination of home-grown players and global superstars will have a similar effect on the national side as cricket’s cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament, which has a cap of four overseas players per starting XI, did on the Indian cricket team. Since the SOCCEREXPRO | 57

inaugural tournament, in 2008, India have won the 2011 International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket World Cup and 2013 ICC Champions Trophy. It must not be forgotten that what is propelling all of this is China’s desire to host and win the World Cup, so it is important to have a league of Chinese players. Equally, there has been a very strong socio-cultural shift in Chinese philosophy of recent years and the Chinese are particularly protective of their identity, a factor that Professor Chadwick feels shouldn’t be overlooked. “A couple of ZHHNV DJR >LQ 0DUFK @ \RX PD\ KDYH heard the story about President Xi calling for a new building construction to be halted because he felt that the architectural style is not Chinese enough,â€? he says. “The Chinese are very protective of their identity and so what the country is trying to do is that the players coming in are helping WR UDLVH WKH VNLOO OHYHO UDLVH WKH SURĂ€ OH providing some heroes and icons the local fans to engage with. But ultimately I don’t think that the Chinese actually want those people. Conceivably, what they want is 11 Chinese players in a team, each of whom is very skilful and can play for the national team; possibly some sort of global icon that people will identify with.â€? Despite the obvious desire to create a legacy in Chinese soccer, it is still YHU\ GLIĂ€ FXOW WR DYRLG WKH HOHSKDQW LQ the room: the gargantuan amount of money available and the unequivocal

desire for players, managers, and agents to have a slice of the substantial pie. Sven-Goran Eriksson, who is enjoying the most lucrative contract of his career at Shanghai International Port Group Football Club, believes that “players of the ilk of Messi, Rooney, and Ronaldo will probably come to the CSL soonâ€?. The next transfer window will be the litmus test for the CSL, because although heads were turned by the recent assemblage of top players, one could opine that they were not really world class players; not the irreplaceable crown jewels of the elite leagues. The appearance in China of superagent Jorge Mendes, a man who has been involved in many of the recent top transfers in Europe over the last decade, has alerted a lot of clubs. Mendes, the agent of football luminaries JosĂŠ Mourinho and Cristiano Ronaldo, recently announced a partnership with Guo Guangchang – the billionaire chairman of Fosun International Limited – creating Foyo Gestifute. Though Mendes has not GLUHFWO\ VSHFLĂ€ HG KLV LQWHQWLRQV LQ &KLQD Foyo Gestifute’s website says that the company is aimed at ‘promoting the development of Chinese Football’. Mendes has been active in China for some time, principally through Ronaldo, who is the most popular global athlete on Chinese social media. Mendes will have been aware of the burgeoning business

Winter transfer window expenditure (â‚Ź millions)

331

250

78

Source: Soccerex Transfer Review by Prime Time Sport

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opportunities available to him and his clients, he will also have been mindful of the desire to sign a preeminent global star and the Chinese adoration of breaking world records. 5RQDOGR LV GHĂ€ QLWHO\ LQ WKH WRS Ă€ YH LQGLYLGXDO SOD\HUV LQ WKH ZRUOG EXW his career is on the wane, relative to his heralded highs of the past decade, meaning that if he should became available there are unlikely to be many European clubs willing to pay his exorbitant wages in order to exploit what remains of his considerable talent. Some in China, perhaps, would. Professor Chadwick shares Eriksson’s belief that it is more a case of “when Ronaldo signs for a CSL club, not if â€?. With the considerable resources available it is likely that should such a player join the CSL, he will be the player that enables the Chinese to break the coveted world transfer record. The CSL, conscious about becoming viewed as a retirement home for players looking for one last pay-day – a perception which still clings to Major League Soccer in the US – would want a Ronaldo as close to his peak powers as possible. Signing Ronaldo would represent a VLJQLĂ€ FDQW WLSSLQJ SRLQW IRU WKH OHDJXH¡V reputation and its ability to attract further players of his considerable class. The latest big deals may have raised the SURĂ€ OH RI WKH &6/ EXW D PRYH RQ WKH level of Ronaldo would cause serious consternation among the European elite. The potential signing of the three-time Fifa Ballon d’Or winner would not only shape the transfer policies of nervous European clubs but directly affect the Chinese transfer market and increase the expectations of CSL owners and fans – if one club buys Ronaldo, the next team will surely want to buy Messi. The acquisition of foreign players is a vehicle to showcase the CSL as a bold exhibition of Chinese communism to the world enabled by capitalist industrial clout and all the powerbrokers pulling in the same direction. The league is, to some extent, analogous to the national LGHQWLW\ DQG Ă€ VFDO PXVFOH RI &KLQD ² LW is less important for the stake holders to EHFRPH SURĂ€ WDEOH WKDQ IRU WKH SUHVWLJH and portfolio of China to rise. As long President Xi stays interested, the ultimate goal will remain the hosting, and winning, of a World Cup.

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GLOBAL NEWS 1

1 USA Women’s world champions ďŹ le pay complaint Five members of the US women’s QDWLRQDO WHDP KDYH Ă€OHG D FRPSODLQW with their country’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and threatened to boycott this summer’s Olympic Games over claims of wage discrimination by the US Soccer Federation. Carli Lloyd, Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Becky Sauerbrunn made the complaint in early March as they seek to secure equal pay for their team, who are currently ranked number one in the world having won last year’s Fifa Women’s World Cup. 7KHLU Ă€OLQJ QRWHV WKDW IHPDOH SOD\HUV DUH currently paid an annual salary of around US$72,000 plus bonuses for a minimum of 20 games per year, compared to US$100,000 for their male counterparts. 60 | www.soccerex.com

2 ENGLAND West Ham’s controversial stadium deal revealed Premier League side West Ham United will pay just UK£2.5 million (US$3.57 million) a year in rent for the 60,000-seater Olympic Stadium. The Hammers, who will move to the taxpayer-funded east London-based stadium next season, will pay the sum over WKH FRXUVH RI D \HDU OHDVH 7KH ÀJXUH will be halved if the club are relegated. West Ham are not expected to meet running costs such as funding for maintenance, VHFXULW\ JRDOSRVWV DQG FRUQHU à DJV The contract also stipulates that UK£4 million (US$ 5.71 million) of any naming rights deal would be paid to the London Legacy Development Corporation and Newham Borough. Around UK£272 million (US$388 million) has been spent converting the London 2012 for Premier League use. West Ham have contributed UK£15 million (US$21.4 million).

3 FRANCE Hollande promises security French president François Hollande has promised to increase stadium security for Uefa Euro 2016 following the November 2016 terrorist attacks in Paris which killed 130 people and subsequent bombings in Brussels in March, which killed 32. H[WUD RIĂ€FLDOV IURP SULYDWH VHFXULW\ Ă€UPV KDYH EHHQ DGGHG WR WKH QDWLRQDO security for the 24-team tournament, which runs from 10th June to 10th July. Hollande said, “Euro 2016 should be a pursuit that includes coming together, unity, respect, tolerance and a form of response. A response to hatred. To division. To fear. To horror.â€? Euro 2016 is expected to draw 2.5 million fans to 51 matches across ten venues. France’s national stadium, the Stade de France, was targeted by Islamist militants in November. Three suicide bombers staged an attack near the venue during a home friendly with Germany, with one attempting to gain entry before detonation.

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6 4 SWITZERLAND IFAB announces rule changes and video trial The International Football Association Board (IFAB) has revealed changes to the laws of the game for the 2016/17 season. The biggest update from the Switzerland-based rule-setting body, which is comprised of the four UK-based associations and Fifa representatives, has softened the so-called ‘triple-punishment’ law, which sees professional fouls in the penalty area met with a red card and a suspension. Accidental fouls will no longer incur such a consequence. Other revisions will allow the ball to move in any direction at kick-off, while player fouled by an opponent who receives a yellow or red card FDQ QRZ UHPDLQ RQ WKH ÀHOG IRU WUHDWPHQW The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has also revealed that it has been chosen for a private trial of the Video Assistant Referees (VAR) system ahead of a live pilot scheme in 2017/18.

5 DENMARK Nordic countries plot Euro bid Nordic countries Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland are set to make a joint bid to host the Uefa European Championship in 2024 or 2028. “The Euros is one of the biggest events in the world of football, and it is great for all of us who love football,” Danish Football Association (DBU) chairman, Jesper Moeller, said at the shared announcement. Euro 2020, in which Denmark will host four matches, is a one-off pancontinental tournament and will be played in 13 different countries across Europe. The following tournaments will revert to the traditional model. The Nordic countries unsuccessfully joined forces to bid for Euro 2008, losing out to a shared bid from Austria/Switzerland. Rival bids are expected to come from Germany and Turkey. Sweden hosted the 1992 European Championship, which was won by Denmark.

6 QATAR Amnesty warns of World Cup working conditions Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) has been forced once again to defend the working conditions of immigrants constructing 2022 Fifa World Cup projects after a report released by Amnesty International. The report, based on interviews with 132 migrant construction staff mostly from Bangladesh, India and Nepal, said workers building Doha’s Khalifa International Stadium and surrounding spaces ‘have suffered systematic abuses’ and, in some cases, forced labour. Amnesty International is demanding action from Fifa after what it calls ‘shocking indifference to appalling treatment of migrant workers’ on the part of the global governing body. $Q RIÀFLDO UHVSRQVH IURP WKH organising committee called the report “misleading”.

SOCCEREXPRO | 61

8 BRAZIL PelĂŠ sues Samsung over use of image Brazil legend PelĂŠ is suing telecommunications giant Samsung for ‘improper use of his image’, after alleging it used his face in a New York Times print advert last year. While he was not mentioned in the advert, the 75-year-old’s representatives allege that an image of an elderly black man in the activation ‘very closely resembles’ PelĂŠ. 7KH ODZVXLW FODLPV WKDW WKH Ă€UP XVHG D PelĂŠ look-a-like for the advert, and that it would hurt the value of his endorsement rights. The Brazilian is seeking $30 million in damages.

9 SIERRA LEONE Ebola ban ends with home win International competition has returned WR 6LHUUD /HRQH IRU WKH Ă€UVW WLPH VLQFH WKH :HVW $IULFDQ QDWLRQ ZDV RIĂ€FLDOO\ declared free from Ebola, with a 1-0 victory of Gabon. The game, which was played in capital city Freetown, was part of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations schedule, although did QRW FRXQW WRZDUGV TXDOLĂ€FDWLRQ DV *DERQ are hosting the tournament. Sierra Leone, despite being bottom of WKHLU TXDOLĂ€FDWLRQ JURXS FODLPHG YLFWRU\ against the nation ranked 32-places higher than them in the Fifa world rankings, and Sierra Leone FA president Isha Johansen said: “This is the proudest moment for me since being elected. Sierra Leoneans needed this.â€?

Aurelie Marrier d’Unienvil/ AP/Press Association Images

7 HONDURAS Former Fifa vice president pleads guilty Alfredo Hawit, a former vice president of Fifa, has pleaded guilty to four charges of corruption. The Honduran, who has also served as president of North and Central American confederation Concacaf, is accused of having accepted and solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes linked to the sales of marketing rights for tournaments dating back to 2008. The guilty plea is one of the biggest successes so far in the United States’ Department of Justice’s investigation into widespread corruption in football. Each of the four charges carries a maximum prison sentence of up to 20 years, while Hawit will forfeit US$950,000 upon his sentencing. As SoccerexPro was going to press, the US court also unsealed the guilty plea of former Conmebol president Jeffrey Webb.

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10 EQUATORIAL GUINEA Women’s team get Fifa Olympic ban The Equatorial Guinea women’s football team have been suspended from participating in qualifying matches for the 2020 Olympic Games by Fifa, after one of their players was found to have used two different passports with FRQà LFWLQJ GHWDLOV According to the world governing body, Camila Maria do Carmo Nobre de Oliveira had been using two separate passports containing different dates RI ELUWK DQG WZR ELUWK FHUWLÀFDWHV containing different parental details. Fifa have held the Equatoguinean FA (Feguifut) liable for the use of forged RU IDOVLÀHG GRFXPHQWV DQG KDYH DOVR suspended the player herself for 10 international matches handing down a ÀQH RI 86

11 INDIA Luis Figo launches futsal league Former Barcelona, Real Madrid and Portugal winger Luis Figo, a Fifa presidential candidate in 2015, has launched a futsal league in India. The franchise-based Premier Futsal – EDVHG RQ WKH LQGRRU ÀYH D VLGH YHUVLRQ of football, using a smaller, heavier ball – will be played across eight Indian cities from 15th to 24th July. Squads will feature a marquee player and three internationals alongside domestic talent. Indian cricket star Virat Kohli has been signed up as an ambassador. The tournament has been sanctioned by the Associacion Mundial de Futsal and the Futsal Association of India, rather than Fifa.

12 CHINA Bidders revealed for 2023 Asian Cup China leads a list of four nations bidding to host the 2023 Asian Cup, the 18th edition of the tournament. Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea make up the shortlist, with Indonesia involved despite being under a Fifa-imposed ban from international competition due to government interference in the national federation. China signalled its intentions to bid for the 2023 tournament in 2015, after withdrawing its bid from the 2019 edition in 2013 to focus on player development. The previous Asian Cup, held in 2015, was hosted by Australia where the home nation ran out winners, beating South Korea LQ WKH ÀQDO

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SOCCEREXPRO | 63

SIGNINGS A selection of the major deals agreed by the world’s leading clubs, players and competitions in the past three months. For daily updates visit www.sportspromedia.com or follow @SportsPro on Twitter.

Wanda Group becomes Fifa partner The Wanda Group has become a new )LID SDUWQHU WKH À UVW &KLQHVH FRPSDQ\ in the top tier of sponsors for the world JRYHUQLQJ ERG\ 7KH GHDO ZLOO UXQ IRU D \HDU WHUP covering all Fifa competitions up to DQG LQFOXGLQJ WKH )LID :RUOG &XS Fifa partners are entitled to promote their association through branding and promotional activities in all territories DURXQG WKH ZRUOG :DQGD ZKLFK MRLQV $GLGDV &RFD &ROD *D]SURP +\XQGDL DQG 9LVD DPRQJ Fifa’s leading sponsors, will also support the grassroots development of football LQ &KLQD DQG $VLD 64 | www.soccerex.com

1R Ă€ QDQFLDO WHUPV ZHUH UHOHDVHG EXW the timing of the deal is welcome for )LID ,Q HDUO\ 0DUFK LW FRQĂ€ UPHG D 86 PLOOLRQ ORVV IRU LWV Ă€ UVW Ă€ QDQFLDO VKRUWIDOO VLQFH $ GHFOLQH in sponsorship revenues, with a number of partners choosing not to renew long-term partnerships, was one reason for the poor performance, along with one-off costs such as that of staging H[WUDRUGLQDU\ VHVVLRQV DQG 86 PLOOLRQ LQ OHJDO H[SHQVHV LQ D \HDU RI FRUUXSWLRQ VFDQGDOV “We are pleased to welcome the Wanda Group to Fifa,â€? said Gianni ,QIDQWLQR DQQRXQFLQJ WKH Ă€ UVW sponsorship deal since his election as )LID SUHVLGHQW RQ WK )HEUXDU\ ´>,W

LV@ D FRPSDQ\ WKDW KDV D ORQJ DIĂ€ OLDWLRQ with football, has been an active VXSSRUWHU RI WKH JDPH IRU PDQ\ \HDUV and shares our enthusiasm to develop DQG VWUHQJWKHQ IRRWEDOO ´$V )LID SUHVLGHQW , DP FRPPLWWHG to providing stronger support for football development to our member DVVRFLDWLRQV DQG , EHOLHYH WKDW WKH relationship with Wanda will support us to continue the ongoing development DQG JURZWK RI WKH JDPH LQ &KLQD DQG DOO RYHU WKH ZRUOG Âľ ´:H DUH KLJKO\ PRWLYDWHG WR SURPRWH IRRWEDOO DFURVV WKH FRXQWU\ DQG WR LQVSLUH D QHZ JHQHUDWLRQ RI \RXQJVWHUV Âľ added Wang Jianlin, the owner and FKDLUPDQ RI WKH :DQGD *URXS ´7KH &KLQHVH *RYHUQPHQW LV FRPPLWWHG WR WKLV GHYHORSPHQW DQG DV D FRPSDQ\ ZH VWURQJO\ VXSSRUW WKHVH HIIRUWV ´,Q RUGHU WR SURIHVVLRQDOO\ JURZ WKH existing grassroots movement into a sustainable and well-managed sport, we are delighted to tap into the vast experience of the most competent DGYLVRU ² )LID :H EHOLHYH LQ IRRWEDOO as one of the most attractive sports JOREDOO\ DQG KDYH WKH KLJKHVW WUXVW LQ )LID DQG LWV QHZO\ HVWDEOLVKHG RUJDQLVDWLRQDO structure under the lead of president *LDQQL ,QIDQWLQR Âľ With the resources of Wang Jianlin ² &KLQD¡V ULFKHVW PDQ ZLWK D QHW ZRUWK UHSRUWHG E\ )RUEHV DW 86 billion – at its disposal, Wanda has VSHQW KHDYLO\ RQ VSRUW LQ UHFHQW WLPHV ,W FXUUHQWO\ RZQV D SHU FHQW VWDNH LQ 6SDQLVK FOXE $WOpWLFR GH 0DGULG ERXJKW LQ -DQXDU\ DW D FRVW RI DURXQG ½ PLOOLRQ 86 PLOOLRQ ZKLOH LW DFTXLUHG ,QIURQW 6SRUWV 0HGLD LQ )HEUXDU\ IRU ½ ELOOLRQ 86 ELOOLRQ DQG WKH :RUOG 7ULDWKORQ &RUSRUDWLRQ ZKLFK UXQV WKH ,URQPDQ XOWUD WULDWKORQ HYHQWV IRU 86 PLOOLRQ LQ $XJXVW ,QIURQW DQG WKH :7& ZHUH PHUJHG WR IRUP :DQGD 6SRUWV LQ 1RYHPEHU

APPOINTMENTS HÊlène Schrub HÊlène Schrub has been appointed as the new managing GLUHFWRU RI /LJXH FOXE )& 0HW] She has been promoted from her UROH DV JHQHUDO VHFUHWDU\ 6FKUXE MRLQHG WKH )UHQFK VLGH LQ as communications director before being promoted to general VHFUHWDU\ LQ DQG ZLOO UHSRUW WR 0HW] SUHVLGHQW %HUQDUG 6HULQ

Southampton complete Under Armour sponsorship deal Premier League club Southampton have DQQRXQFHG D PXOWL \HDU SDUWQHUVKLS ZLWK JOREDO VSRUWV EUDQG 8QGHU $UPRXU The English south coast side will enter LQWR D VHYHQ \HDU SDUWQHUVKLS ZLWK 8QGHU $UPRXU 7KH %DOWLPRUH EDVHG FRPSDQ\ ZKLFK WDNHV RYHU IURP FXUUHQW VXSSOLHU $GLGDV ZLOO GHVLJQ DQG GHYHORS PDWFKGD\ apparel for the team, beginning with the KRPH DQG DZD\ VWULSV $ORQJVLGH NLW GHYHORSPHQW 8QGHU Armour has vowed to provide

sportswear for more than 5,000 children LQ WKH ORFDO FRPPXQLW\ DV ZHOO DV KHOSLQJ to develop the professional women’s and girls’ programmes, and supporting 6RXWKDPSWRQ¡V SUROLĂ€ F DFDGHP\ “Under Armour shares similar YDOXHV WR XV LQ WKDW WKH\ DFKLHYH success through a combination of KDUG ZRUN DQG VWUDWHJLF WKLQNLQJ Âľ VDLG Southampton chairman Ralph Krueger DW WKH XQYHLOLQJ RI WKH QHZ SDUWQHUVKLS “Our challenge now is to retain our ÂśXQGHUGRJ¡ PHQWDOLW\ ZKLOVW HQWHULQJ D VXVWDLQHG SHULRG RI VXFFHVV Âľ

Emirates FA Cup continues with BT and BBC 8. EURDGFDVWHUV %%& DQG %7 6SRUW have retained the shared rights to The (PLUDWHV )$ &XS (QJODQG¡V SULPDU\ NQRFNRXW FRPSHWLWLRQ XQWLO The two companies have agreed a WKUHH \HDU H[WHQVLRQ ZLWK WKH )RRWEDOO $VVRFLDWLRQ )$ RI WKH H[LVWLQJ 8.Â… PLOOLRQ 86 PLOOLRQ GHDO VWUXFN LQ WKDW VSOLWV WKH FRYHUDJH of the world’s oldest cup competition EHWZHHQ WKH IUHH WR DLU %%& DQG WKH SD\ 79 %7 6SRUW %DUEDUD 6ODWHU GLUHFWRU RI %%& 6SRUW said: “We are delighted to retain the rights to broadcast the most famous

domestic cup competition in the world RQ IUHH WR DLU 79 7KH UHQHZHG GHDO will bring audiences closer to the action than ever before via an innovative digital RIIHULQJ DFURVV DOO SODWIRUPV Âľ ´7KH )$ &XS LV D IDQWDVWLF competition which is loved the world over, and we are delighted to be extending our partnership with the FA,â€? DGGHG 'HOLD %XVKHOO PDQDJLQJ GLUHFWRU RI %7 79 DQG %7 6SRUW As part of the extension there will be an enhanced commitment to women’s IRRWEDOO IURP ERWK WKH %%& DQG %7 7KH %%& ZLOO RIIHU OLYH FRYHUDJH RI LQWHUQDWLRQDO TXDOLĂ€ HUV WKH :RPHQ¡V )$ &XS Ă€ QDO SOXV RQH (QJODQG ZRPHQ¡V IULHQGO\ PDWFK SHU VHDVRQ DORQJVLGH additional live matches and FA Women’s 6XSHU /HDJXH KLJKOLJKWV %7 6SRUW ZLOO UHPDLQ WKH H[FOXVLYH live broadcaster of the Women’s Super /HDJXH DQG IURP ZLOO VKRZ ERWK :RPHQ¡V )$ &XS VHPL Ă€ QDOV H[FOXVLYHO\ OLYH WKH :RPHQ¡V )$ &XS )LQDO DQG (QJODQG VHQLRU ZRPHQ¡V KRPH IULHQGOLHV

Thomas Gries 6 HFRQG WLHU *HUPDQ VLGH )& Kaiserslautern have appointed Thomas Gries as their new FKLHI PDUNHWLQJ RIĂ€ FHU *ULHV IRUPHUO\ KHOG WKH VDPH SRVLWLRQ DW &RFD &ROD *HUPDQ\ ZKHUH KH ZRUNHG RQ VHYHUDO RI WKH VRIW GULQNV JLDQW¡V IDPRXV &KULVWPDV DGYHUWLVLQJ campaigns, and also organised WKH FRPSDQ\¡V PDUNHWLQJ HIIRUWV DURXQG WKH )LID :RUOG &XS LQ *HUPDQ\ +LV &9 DOVR EHDUV VWLQWV ZLWK 3URFWHU *DPEOH 0DUV .UDIW )RRGV DQG 5RWNlSSFKHQ 0XPP Dr Friedrich Curtius The German Football $VVRFLDWLRQ ')% KDV DSSRLQWHG 'U )ULHGULFK &XUWLXV DV LWV QHZ VHFUHWDU\ JHQHUDO 7KH \HDU ROG ODZ\HU ZDV WKH XQDQLPRXV FKRLFH RI ')% PHPEHUV WR UHSODFH +HOPXW 6DQGURFN &XUWLXV ZKR KDV ZRUNHG IRU WKH ')% VLQFH MRLQLQJ WKH JRYHUQLQJ ERG\ IROORZLQJ KLV ODZ VWXGLHV LQ ZDV RIĂ€ FLDOO\ VZRUQ LQ WR KLV QHZ SRVW DW DQ H[WUDRUGLQDU\ PHHWLQJ RI WKH ')% ERDUG LQ )UDQNIXUW RQ WK $SULO Didier Quillot Dider Quillot, the former head of Orange and LagardĂŠre Active, has been chosen as the new general manager of the Professional Football League /)3 ZKLFK RSHUDWHV )UDQFH¡V WRS GRPHVWLF FRPSHWLWLRQV 7KH DSSRLQWPHQW ZLOO EHFRPH RIĂ€ FLDO when current director general -HDQ 3LHUUH +XJKHV UHWLUHV SOCCEREXPRO | 65

Gene J. Puskar/AP/Press Association Images

Anheuser-Busch and Delta join Copa AmĂŠrica Centenario *OREDO EUHZLQJ FRPSDQ\ $QKHXVHU %XVFK DQG 86 EDVHG DYLDWLRQ JLDQW Delta Airlines have become the latest PDMRU Ă€UPV WR VSRQVRU WKH &RSD $PpULFD &HQWHQDULR 7KH GHDOV ZKLFK ZHUH EURNHUHG E\ 6RFFHU 8QLWHG 0DUNHWLQJ 680 WKH PDUNHWLQJ DUP RI $PHULFDQ GRPHVWLF ERG\ 0DMRU /HDJXH 6RFFHU 0/6 are the latest in a string of similar agreements with global brands to sponsor the one-off tournament, which KRQRXUV \HDUV RI WKH &RSD $PpULFD 7KH WZR Ă€UPV ZLOO MRLQ 6WDWH )DUP &RFD &ROD 1LNH DQG 6SULQW DV RIĂ€FLDO SDUWQHUV 'LVFXVVLQJ WKH GHDO 680 SUHVLGHQW .DWK\ &DUWHU VDLG ´7R KDYH WKHVH

companies stand with us, it sends a PHVVDJH WR JOREDO IRRWEDOO WKDW ZH NQRZ how to put on a tournament that is fair DQG WUDQVSDUHQW :H¡UH DOO OLQNLQJ DUPV DQG SXWWLQJ WKDW PHVVDJH RXW WKHUH Âľ The deals show renewed interest in the event after it almost collapsed under an LQYHVWLJDWLRQ LQWR EULEHU\ DQG FRUUXSWLRQ EHIRUH 680 EHFDPH LQYROYHG The tournament will run between 3rd DQG WK -XQH DFURVV WHQ FLWLHV LQ WKH 8QLWHG 6WDWHV PDUNLQJ WKH Ă€UVW WLPH DQ\ HGLWLRQ RI WKH &RSD $PpULFD KDV EHHQ KRVWHG RXWVLGH RI 6RXWK $PHULFD %UD]LO $UJHQWLQD DQG 8UXJXD\ DUH DPRQJ WKH IDYRXULWHV WR WDNH KRPH WKH WLWOH DV %DUFHORQD VXSHUVWDUV /LRQHO 0HVVL 1H\PDU DQG /XLV 6XiUH] JR KHDG WR KHDG

CSM in exclusive La Liga appointment &60 WKH VSRUWV DQG HQWHUWDLQPHQW DUP RI JOREDO PDUNHWLQJ DJHQF\ &KLPH KDV EHHQ DSSRLQWHG E\ /D /LJD WKH ERG\ ZKLFK UXQV 6SDLQ¡V WRS GLYLVLRQ to represent its commercial and VSRQVRUVKLS ULJKWV JOREDOO\ ,W ZLOO DOVR VXSSRUW /D /LJD¡V JOREDO PDUNHWLQJ DFWLYLWLHV RQ DQ H[FOXVLYH EDVLV 7KH GHDO PDUNV &60¡V ULVLQJ SUHVHQFH LQ ZRUOG IRRWEDOO DQG WKH Ă€UP VHHV WKH VSRUW 66 | www.soccerex.com

Danish FA appoints data agency Two Circles The Danish Football Association '%8 KDV DSSRLQWHG GDWD DJHQF\ 7ZR &LUFOHV WR KHOS LW GHYHORS EHWWHU understanding for both its fans and its JUDVVURRWV SOD\HUV 7KH '%8 KDV DQQRXQFHG SODQV WR SXW data-driven insight at the heart of its fan DQG SOD\HU HQJDJHPHQW DQG LV ORRNLQJ WR 7ZR &LUFOHV WR DVVLVW LQ WKH SURFHVV 7KH GHDO ZLOO VHH 7ZR &LUFOHV SURYLGH precise business intelligence to the '%8 DV LW DLPV WR EXLOG QHZ SURGXFWV and increase commercial performance WKURXJKRXW 'DQLVK IRRWEDOO .DWMD 0RHVJDDUG FKLHI H[HFXWLYH RI WKH '%8 VDLG ´2XU SDUWQHUVKLS ZLWK 7ZR &LUFOHV DOORZV XV WR WUXO\ SXW IDQV DQG SOD\HUV DW WKH FHQWUH RI RXU DSSURDFK ´+DYLQJ D FOHDUHU SLFWXUH RI DQ\ VWDNHKROGHU¡V SUHIHUHQFHV DOORZV XV WR build new experiences and products which match the football fans’ wishes DQG H[SHFWDWLRQV Âľ The deal is the latest in a string of KLJK SURĂ€OH IRRWEDOO FOLHQWV IRU 7ZR &LUFOHV ZKLFK KDV SUHYLRXVO\ ODXQFKHG SDUWQHUVKLSV ZLWK 1RUZLFK &LW\ )& 6RXWKDPSWRQ )& DQG )& 8WUHFKW

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APPOINTMENTS Giovanni Gardini ,WDOLDQ FOXE ,QWHU 0LODQ KDYH appointed Giovanni Gardini as WKHLU FKLHI IRRWEDOO DGPLQLVWUDWRU Gardini joined from his role as managing director of Hellas 9HURQD DQG ZLOO EH UHVSRQVLEOH for managing the Serie A side’s relationships with sporting institutions, as well as supervising WKH FOXE¡V SOD\HU WUDQVIHU DQG IRRWEDOO UHODWHG DGPLQLVWUDWLRQ +H ZLOO UHSRUW WR ,QWHU FKLHI H[HFXWLYH 0LFKDHO %ROLQJEURNH

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Steve Hollis (QJOLVK VRFFHU VLGH $VWRQ 9LOOD have appointed Steve Hollis as FKDLUPDQ +ROOLV UHSODFHG 5DQG\ /HUQHU 9LOOD¡V $PHULFDQ RZQHU PLGZD\ WKURXJK WKH VHDVRQ LQ ZKLFK WKH %LUPLQJKDP club were relegated from the 3UHPLHU /HDJXH 7KH WHDP¡V April demotion precipitated the resignations of board members /RUG 0HUY\Q .LQJ DQG 'DYLG %HUQVWHLQ 0DQDJHU 5HPL *DUGH and chief executive Tom Fox had DOUHDG\ GHSDUWHG

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LA Galaxy book an Uber 0DMRU /HDJXH 6RFFHU 0/6 FOXE /RV $QJHOHV *DOD[\ KDYH VLJQHG D SDUWQHUVKLS ZLWK RQOLQH WD[L VHUYLFH 8EHU The deal will see Uber provide transportation to and from all of the *DOD[\¡V KRPH JDPHV DW WKH 6WXE+XE &HQWHU ZKHUH WKH FOXE ZLOO RIIHU GHGLFDWHG 8EHU RQO\ SLFN XS DQG GURS RII ]RQHV 8EHU ZLOO DOVR UHFHLYH DGYHUWLVLQJ VSDFHV ZLWKLQ WKH VWDGLXP “We are thrilled to continue to enhance /$ *DOD[\ IDQ H[SHULHQFH DW 6WXE+XE &HQWHU E\ PDNLQJ LW HDVLHU WR DFFHVV

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68 | www.soccerex.com

Coca-Cola to supply Lyon’s OL Park &RFD &ROD KDV VLJQHG D VXSSO\ GHDO ZLWK )UHQFK VLGH 2O\PSLTXH /\RQQDLV DQG become a founding partner of the Ligue FOXE¡V QHZ KRPH VWDGLXP 2/ 3DUN 7KH WKUHH \HDU GHDO ZLOO VHH &RNH products sold at concessions stands and 9,3 DUHDV WKURXJKRXW WKH (XUR venue, while additional branding and digital ULJKWV DUH DOVR LQFOXGHG LQ WKH DJUHHPHQW &RFD &ROD ZLOO KDYH DFFHVV WR /\RQ SOD\HUV IRU SURPRWLRQDO SXUSRVHV DQG UXQ D SURJUDPPH RIIHULQJ \RXQJ IDQV RI WKH FOXE WKH FKDQFH WR DFFRPSDQ\ WKH WHDP RQ WR WKH SLWFK DV PDWFK GD\ PDVFRWV Financial terms of the agreement, EURNHUHG E\ /\RQ¡V H[FOXVLYH PDUNHWLQJ DJHQF\ /DJDUGqUH 6SRUWV )UDQFH KDYH QRW EHHQ GLVFORVHG

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Alejandro Dominguez Alejandro Dominguez has been elected president of South American FRQIHGHUDWLRQ &RQPHERO 7KH 3DUDJXD\DQ ZKR ZDV the lone candidate after the ZLWKGUDZDO RI 8UXJXD\¡V interim president Wilmar 9DVTXH] ZDV XQDQLPRXVO\ EDFNHG E\ WKH FRQWLQHQW¡V ten member associations at DQ H[WUDRUGLQDU\ VHVVLRQ LQ /XTXH 3DUDJXD\ +H ZLOO WDNH D VHDW RQ WKH H[HFXWLYH committee of the world JRYHUQLQJ ERG\ )LID DV D YLFH SUHVLGHQW $UJHQWLQD¡V Luis Segura was also named WR WKH H[HFXWLYH FRPPLWWHH Paul Bell English club Leeds United KDYH DSSRLQWHG 3DXO %HOO DV H[HFXWLYH GLUHFWRU %HOO UHWXUQV WR WKH &KDPSLRQVKLS VLGH after a spell as chief operating RIĂ€ FHU DW 6KHIĂ€ HOG :HGQHVGD\ +H SUHYLRXVO\ VHUYHG DV /HHGV¡ director of commercial affairs IRU IRXU DQG D KDOI \HDUV Barry Webber 3 UHPLHU /HDJXH VLGH &U\VWDO 3DODFH )& KDYH DSSRLQWHG %DUU\ :HEEHU DV FRPPHUFLDO GLUHFWRU :HEEHU MRLQV IURP fourth-tier English club 6WHYHQDJH )& ZKHUH KH KDV been chief executive since -DQXDU\ +H KDV KHOG WKH role of commercial director at two other Premier League teams – West Ham United and 1HZFDVWOH 8QLWHG SOCCEREXPRO | 69

REPLAY

KETTERING TOWN’S UNLIKELY PIONEERS

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Nick Potts/PA Archive/Press Association Images

The early months of 2016 saw the passing of an unusual anniversary. Shirt sponsorship in football was in its international infancy in 1976 when a non-league team became the first in England to wear a company’s logo across their chests. A little over 40 years ago, on 24th January 1976, Kettering Town beat Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal to the commercial punch when they wore jerseys bearing the name of local company Kettering Tyres. The UK’s Financial Times recalled the episode in its ‘Defining Moments’ series on 27th February 2010.

Kettering Town, perhaps surprisingly, were the ďŹ rst English club to wear a shirt sponsorship

IROORZLQJ VHDVRQ EDFNHG E\ %ROWRQ :DQGHUHUV DQG 'HUE\ &RXQW\ .HWWHULQJ DSSOLHG IRU WKH ULJKW WR FDUU\ VKLUW VSRQVRUVKLS ZKLFK ZDV Ă€ QDOO\ DFFHSWHG E\ WKH )$ LQ -XQH ,URQLFDOO\ .HWWHULQJ IDLOHG WR DWWUDFW D VSRQVRU IRU WKDW VHDVRQ ¡ Shirt sponsorship soon went on to become an essential part of any football club’s commercial operation, not just in England but around the world. Liverpool, in their pomp as one of the European game’s major powers, signed WKH )RRWEDOO /HDJXH¡V Ă€ UVW ORQJ WHUP GHDO with Hitachi in 1979. The practice soon spread throughout every tier. Today, Liverpool’s front-of-shirt deal with Standard Chartered is worth an annual UKÂŁ25 million, according to Sporting Intelligence. The same report calculates the total shirt sponsorship income for the 20 Premier League clubs in 2015/16 was UKÂŁ222.9 million.

In the Football League, as in many leagues internationally, teams are now permitted to carry more than one shirt sponsor. Even recently deposed European champions Barcelona, whose shirts had never borne a commercial logo other than that of their kit manufacturer until 2011, now carry three: Qatar Airways appears on the front, Beko on the sleeve and Intel on the inside of the shirt. Spanish newspaper $6 reported in January that Qatar Airways was seeking a â‚Ź240 million, four-year renewal with the Catalan club. Kettering Town, now plying their trade in the Southern League Premier Division, have never seen a fraction of such riches. But they are able to celebrate their place in history: on Easter Monday, 28th March, the team took on Bedworth United wearing specially commissioned Kettering Tyres shirts.

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