Exploring The Process Of Managing a Football Club
The curiosity of several sports fan especially football predominately lead them to question how the mechanism of running a sport club is operating ? Why recently we have seen tremendous amounts of money injected in some clubs treasuries ? Basing on what the managerial schemes are envisaged ?
In order to strengthen the knowledge of football club executives, I used the European Club Association Management Guide published in 2015 as the main and only source to write this article after analyzing it building on utilitarian information founded in it..
Firstly, What is the European Cup Association (ECA) ?
ECA is an independent body representing football clubs at European level, and is probably the most important stakeholders for clubs at the supranational level. It counts 232 in 2017/2018 and its main aim is to safeguard and promote the interests of European with other engaged entities such as FIFA, UEFA and the European Union. ECA is also engaged in Women’s football with the ECA Women’s football Committee (WFC). Additionally, when things are linked to clubs interests ECA is acting as a platform to defend engaged clubs positions.
Before starting anylysing in depth, I want to present for you three important dimensions of basically any club organizational structure.
1-Time : which is critical for strategy, in football, as in business, there are three time horizons expressed as short term, medium term and long term. These horizons are needed for planning and evaluation purposes. As units of measure in football, short term can be considered the minimal planning time ranging ranging from the next match to season, Medium term can be deemed a period of up to three years, as within financial planning parameters, whereas long termi the horizon that looks further beyond that.
2-Activity : Each club performs several activities at their core, Sport, business and community are identified as core activities. There are no ‘pure’ ones, every activity in each of the three sector impacts on the other two. Clubs require various services in order to enable the three core activities to be developed.
3-Environment : This what shapes a football club and gives it its unique features, but it is also a source of many opportunities for clubs that are able to recognize their competitive advantage, which is determined by their surroundings. This environment will have football-specific elements, and also that is functioning within a given jurisdiction. The relation between a club and its wider world will ultimately be responsible for its success or failure as an organisation.
These three dimensions combine to provide an overview of a framework club organisational structure, they shape the different chapters and their content by focusing on club activities that are firmly located within a club’s specific environment and where different functions are necessarily framed by the time dimension and time horizons.
Chapter 1: Sport Activities
Focuses on sports activities, which ultimately define and make a football club, the football department of any club is directly or indirectly responsible for a significant proportion of a club’s overall spending. The sports structure of clubs is shaped by short term, medium term and long term pressures, with various functional actors in this structure responsible for the success of the club in the short, medium and long terms. Relationships between key internal actors are of vital importance for the sporting success of the club, which in most cases, is also prerequisite for the business and the community success. Ultimately, the success or failure of any short or medium measures that are implemented, is determined by the long term approach, where club leadership and elements such as youth development play a crucial role.
Chapter 2: Business Activities
Focuses on business activities, exploring the current state of the football club economy and analyzing the business dimension from a revenue and cost point of view. The specific nature of the business of football is tackled in a descriptive manner, with an emphasis on what makes football the unique industry it is considered to be. The chapter also utilises the time dimension by placing the various cost drivers and revenue streams into the three time horizons
Chapter 3: Community Activities:
Focuses on the community aspect of club activities, under the which various manifestations of community activity have been located. For professional clubs, their active community is a source of revenue, support, criticism and even human capital. Clubs have been engaged in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities since before the term was invented, but ‘community’ does not comprise only individual charitable actions with underprivileged sectors of society. In reality, football clubs serve as an effective nexus between the local community, the business world and public authorities, club commercialisation has placed significant pressures on this relationship, with clubs seeking to retain legitimate and authentic lines of communication.
Chapter 4: Club’s operational services:
Describes the internal operational services of a club as its internal environment. All of these services are not unique to football clubs but nevertheless play a crucial role in enabling al three core activities to be developed. A descriptive approach is once again employed, and the services are analysed, starting with a look at a number of examples of real-life club organisational diagrams, followed by club administration, through to marketing and commercial, infrastructures, communication, medical and legal operatives.
ECA 1st Subdivision, British approach
ECA 1st Subdivision Club, Southern European approach
Chapter 5: Governance and institutional relations:
Identifies the external environment of football clubs, embedded in a world of institutions. Various aspects as the such as the geographical, economic and political factors are mentioned. Clubs are also given the opportunity to determine their location within the football pyramid and understand the relationships that govern the life overall football industry, both internally and externally, with regard to the existence oif many important stakeholders, lines of communication, non-football influences the roles of society and the community at large.
Chapter 6: Strategies Crisis and change management:
Develops the issue of club strategy planning, which generally concerns the formulation of plans to achieve certain long term goals and the allocation of resources required to do that, the long term planning and vision function is one of the most important functions on the part of club ownership, as it serves to lay the foundations for overall club development and will have an impact on the short, medium, and long term time horizons for any club. Ultimately, a regime’s success or failure will be determined in order to formulate the correct policies and plans. Various real-life club strategies are also given as examples in parallel with the functions of change and crisis management, which are generally the two mechanisms that regulate club development in the time dimension.
