List Alert: Top 5 Learnings From My First Season as CEO of a Professional Football Club

My first season as CEO of a professional football club is in the books.  It ended on a somewhat somber note as we gave up a 3-0 halftime lead to draw with Minerva Punjab 4-4, in a match where our opponents literally scored in the last second of the game.  While I was disappointed that we couldn’t end the season on a high with a dominating win at home, the frustration didn’t last nearly as long as it would have if this match was earlier in the year - this is all thanks to my on the job growth as a young football executive.

This season was truly an emotional roller coaster.  We had some highs in the form of a 5-0 win at home against Mumbai FC in the Maha Derby and a 0-1 win away against Kolkata giants Kingfisher East Bengal.  Some of the lows consisted of a few injuries to some key players and losing 10 points by giving up goals in the last 5 minutes of 7 matches.  Overall, though, I’m pleased with the fact that we stuck with our vision as a youth development focused club by providing the opportunity for 12 Academy graduates to make their debut in the I-League – some even scoring goals or ensuring clean sheets. 

So rather than summarising the entire season, I’ve created a list of the 5 key learnings from my first season as CEO of a professional football club in India (in no particular order):
  • Have the patience to stay true to one’s vision and strategic direction even at times when there is immense pressure to grow bigger faster in order to compete with some top global and domestic sports brands
  • The supporters are the lifeblood of the club and it's highly important to make them feel like part of your family - for most supporters a little respect and a listening ear goes a long way
  • Since watching your team lose (or not win) from the stands is a frustratingly helpless feeling, make best efforts to spend time with the technical staff post matches to understand why the desired result was not achieved – logic and objectivity has an incredible way of reducing the sting caused by the defeat 
  • Take time to play football or engage in fun activities with your administrative staff. At the end of the day, football is meant to be enjoyable and it's important to remind everyone about this point from time to time
  • Be available to the players during the low times as that is when they need management’s encouragement the most 

I will not lie to the readers of this blog and say that I closely followed each of the above. It is only now when I look back at the entire season and assess my contribution to the club beyond the meetings I led or myriad of power point presentations, excel sheets and word documents I created, that I wish I would have spent more time doing the above as each of these make a difference.  And I know that most of these learnings are either common sense or can be found in many professional self-help books however sometimes you need to experience things first before understanding what’s truly important. 

That’s the beauty of sport though. The season is over and a blank canvas is there in front of me ready to be painted with all of the soft and hard skills that I now have in my palette.
With our U18 Team before they left for the National Finals


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3 Cities, 3 Football Academies

Image
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to visit a few of the top youth football Academies in India.  It’s always interesting to see first-hand some of the blood, sweat and tears football administrators are investing into the future of the sport in the country.  Not to mention, I love experiencing different cultures, norms and idiosyncrasies in each place I visit (there are many).  I won't get too deep into my personal adventures and challenges of traveling through West Bengal and Punjab in the insanely hot month of May.  I'll need to save those for another blog.   I've included the places I’ve visited with some pictures. Pailan World School (Kolkata) http://www.pailanworldschool.com/ Workers putting in artificial turf for the new FIFA Youth Academy Chandigarh Football Academy http://chandigarh.gov.in/dept_sports7.htm The hostel where the CFA players live YFC Rurka Kalan (Rurka Kalan, Punjab) http://yfcrurka
Read more

Liverpool International Football Academy Coaches – Ray Curtis and Michael Rice

Image
The last half of 2013 was one ongoing conversation about the proposed partnership between Liverpool Football Club and our client DSK Group.  We all knew that only good could come out of this relationship, however we also knew that the level of good would be contingent on the coaches which Liverpool FC selected to represent the Academy in India.  This point couldn’t be hammered home any harder as I’ve seen countless projects fail in India due to the international club’s inability to identify the right type of coaches to make the trip to India. It’s not that these coaches lacked technical expertise or coaching ability, actually that’s never the case, it’s that they lacked a positive attitude and patience.  I actually wrote a post about this which can be found a few months back.  The coaches selected to run the Liverpool International Football Academy DSK Shivajians, Ray and Michael, were handpicked by a trusted member of the Liverpool FC international programming staff.  He had alr
Read more

Dreams Do Come True - International Book Tour

Image
It was March 2020 when I started writing a book about my eventful career journey and the philosophy I chose to apply as I made decisions along my professional pathway. It was the early days of the pandemic, and my wife and I were staying at a friend’s beautiful farmhouse in Lonavala – a quaint hill station two hours’ drive from Mumbai. During those days, I would wake up early, exercise, chant while walking in nature, make a cup of coffee, sit in one of the comfy chairs facing a nearby mountain, pull out my laptop, put on my headphones, turn on my favourite tunes and start typing.  I relished the process of taking the memories, beliefs, insights and lived wisdom that resided in my head and heart and excitedly placing them onto the Microsoft Word document. It was therapeutic, exhilarating and addicting – creating something that did not exist before. Thanks to the online Masterclass course on how to write non-fiction led by renown author Malcolm Gladwell that my wife purchased for me for
Read more