Day 4 of #WFSLive was packed with insightful, exciting, emotional and also passionate panels, with Samuel Eto’o reflecting on his tough childhood in Cameroon and his long journey to success, President Javier Tebas sharing plans to re-open LaLiga stadiums early next year and super-agents Jonathan Barnett and Mino Raiola taking the stage to strongly dismiss FIFA’s reported plans to implement salary caps in football.
“WE WANT TO HAVE 3,000 FANS PER STADIUM IN JANUARY-FEBRUARY”
Javier Tebas – President, LaLiga
“More than a percentage, we’re aiming at a number. I think having 3,000 spectators at a football stadiums would be reasonable. It’s already happening in some theatres in Madrid. Why not in football stadiums?
“IN SOME REGIONS WE COULD ALREADY BE OPENING STADIUMS”
Javier Tebas – President, LaLiga
“In some regions of Spain such as the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands or even Madrid, I think we could already have a percentage of fans back in venues. The Spanish Government wants to do this in the whole country at the same time, but this is something we need to discuss because it’s going to be imposible. We can’t have all stadiums closed just because some regions have more infections than others.”
🗣️ "More than a percentage, we're aiming at a number. I think having 3,000 spectators at a football stadiums would be reasonable. It's already happening in some theatres in Madrid. Why not in football stadiums?"
– @Tebasjavier (@LaLiga)#WFSLive pic.twitter.com/YQn7L9MyB1
— World Football Summit (@WFSummit) November 27, 2020
“FIFA HAS NO IDEA WHAT AGENTS DO”
Jonathan Barnett – Vice-President, The Football Forum
“Not one member of the FIFA hierarchy has ever set foot in an agent’s office. Not one of them really knows what an agent does. How can they make rules? We agree there have to be rules. We are quite prepared to sit down with FIFA and help to write the rules. They have never wanted to do that. They just want to impose a set of rules on us.”
“SALARY CAPS WOULD MEAN GOING BACK TO RUSSIAN COMMUNIST TIMES”
Mino Raiola – President, The Football Forum
“This cap would be going back 75 years ago in economically Russian communist times, it is not of this world anymore… Should we do a cap when clubs earn more money than a normal company? Real Madrid and Barcelona last year almost made a billion. Do we ask them to cap? Do we ask them to say the tickets are too high? Or the shirt rights are too high and you cannot sell the shirt for 100 million?”
🗣️ "We want players to have a voice and we’re now seeing important reforms being pushed rightly and wrongly, like salary caps for players and new agent regulations which we think will be really detrimental for football."
– Daniele Boccucci#WFSLive pic.twitter.com/KX4YoRUzYQ
— World Football Summit (@WFSummit) November 26, 2020
“5G IS GOING TO CHANGE HOW FANS EXPECT US TO INTERACT WITH THEM”
Mike Sutherland – Chief Transformation Officer, Real Madrid
“5G is going to bring up an entire new world of bandwidth which is going to bring with it a greater capability to provide richer content and to provide more and more data coming to your personal devices. As a consequence, consumer expectations are going to change. The role of 5G in a long term is going to change how fans expect us to interact with them.”
“ATHLETES DRIVE MORE ENGAGEMENT THAN THE ORGANISATIONS THEY REPRESENT”
James Dobbs – Managing Director, SNTV
“If you create content with a top level athlete like LeBron James or Lionel Messi then it will perform well. Athletes now, more so than the organisations they represent, are the drivers of engagement.”
🗣️ "Everyone in the football industry now has access to data. I believe people will start understanding how to use data better. It’s not only important to have data but to know what to do with it before giving it to a client."
– @eGranero11 (@Olocip_Lab)#WFSLive pic.twitter.com/SEH9Bef01E
— World Football Summit (@WFSummit) November 26, 2020
“WE HAVE TO MAKE SURE OUR CONTENT IS WORTHY OF FAN’S ATTENTION”
Winnie Chan – Chief Commercial Officer, Malaysian Football League
“For me the top commodity is the fans’ attention. We have to have a strategy to make sure the content is worthy of their attention. You can have thousands of hours of content, but if you don’t get the attention you’re waisting your effort. We have to have a proper plan to ensure that our content is worthy of attention. “
“ATHLETES IN GENERAL ARE SCARED TO SHOW VULNERABILITY”
Thomas Beattie – Former footballer
“As an athlete you’re expected to be this robot and any size of weakness in that is prayed upon and it can be difficult for people to go around it… Athletes in general are scared to show vulnerability because something is always willing to take your space and that can redefine your career. Sport is a difficult environment to be honest and show emotion and it is toxic and damaging, and it’s not authentic “
🗣️ "People see this idea of sexuality and masculinity are linked. I think we’re still trying to redefine what masculinity is. There’s still a stigmatism and being gay in football is seen as being outside of these norms and considered a weakness."
– @IamTomBeattie #WFSLive pic.twitter.com/HbM53nk4Pe
— World Football Summit (@WFSummit) November 26, 2020
“AFRICAN CLUBS NEED A PLATFORM TO COME TOGETHER”
Hicham El Amrani – CEO & Co-Founder, HEA Sports
It’s time to have a club platform in Africa where clubs can share their own best practices and their own examples and so on. Clubs are always connected when they trade payers and when they play in competitions, but they are not in my view connected enough among their own administrators to work together and get to know each other and get to know their own environment and learn from each other. That I think together with education requirement is extremely important.”
“WE’VE HAD NO SUPPORT FROM THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT”
Neil Doncaster – CEO, Scottish Professional Football League
“Around 60% of the league’s income comes from fans. Roughly there’s around £70m losses incurred across our leagues and that’s likely to rise to £100m by the end of the season. Despite that, we’ve had no support from the Scottish government.”