The FBA Webinar Series – CSR in the Age of COVID-19 and Beyond

The FBA Webinar Series – CSR in the Age of COVID-19 and Beyond

On Monday 27th of April, EFDN partner, The Football Business Academy (FBA) hosted Episode 6 of their free, live webinar series on Youtube, which featured EFDN’s CEO, Hubert Rovers. 

Below, we have put together a summary of some of the key discussion points made by both Hubert Rovers and Jacob Naish (Commercial Director at EFDN member club, FC Nordsjælland) about the effects of COVID-19, how they have reacted to the current situation, in addition to, looking towards the future of football, regarding social change and sustainability.

Jacob Naish spoke about the clubs’ 2 main parts of their philosophy and the meaning of ‘not just another professional football club’. The two main parts are:

1. “The fundamental belief in the power of youth”– “That comes through in the way we focus on the development of our young people as whole human beings and not just as football players, we believe that if we do that, we’ll create more, better people but also great football players,” said Jacob.

In relation to this point, the club are the youngest team in Europe to have one of the highest percentages of academy graduates in the first team, across both the men’s and women’s game.

2. “To play for something greater than yourself”- “Our squad and our leadership have one of the largest contingents of ‘Common Goal’ alumni. They also have a lot of their own social change projects that they develop and we support them and connect that on a very deep level.” Jacob continued.

FBA: Have you observed any brands getting creative in how they’ve repackaged some of their campaigns and potentially with a CSR twist to it?

Jacob stated, “For us and CSR, we see our player development model as a kind of reverse engineering, conscientious values into young players so that when they become adults they emerge with a kind of global citizenship values,”

“and, CSR is not so much CSR, it’s kind of second nature to them to help and invest into their communities and do those kinds of things. Something like joining ‘Common Goal’ becomes an absolute no brainer, it’s a minimum standard for them.”

FC Nordsjælland adapting to the current COVID-19 crisis

The club has a hotel bolted on to the side of the stadium, in which they offered to the local hospital, as well as collaborating with the local police on social distancing procedures.

In the clubs’ response to the COVID-19 crisis, Jacob said, “We started with just raising awareness through daily content, squad news, some archival stuff to get people thinking about the history.”

He added, “We were just trying I guess, to adjust to this new reality and try to communicate the messages that we feel are really really important for our community to interact with.”

Supporter of Each Other

Hubert discussed how EFDN launched the Supporter of Each Other campaign to inspire people, players, fans, clubs, leagues, FAs and all other organisations and companies to support each other to overcome the current COVID-19 crisis.

Through this campaign, the Supporter of Each Other team are communicating tips and initiatives to stop the further spread of the virus, to stay healthy and socially active from home and to look after each other. As well as, informing people about the activities and initiatives taken by people, players, clubs, leagues and FAs from all around Europe.

Football has the power to bring people together, regardless of their cultural and language differences. It has the ability to bring communities together by connecting people with the sport that brings them joy. It breaks down barriers that divide us from one another and it can be a powerful tool for social development – even in the state of crisis.

At times like this, it doesn’t matter what your age, race or gender is, what nationality you have or which colours your favourite club has. We all need to stand together and become a #SupporterofEachother to overcome this crisis.

The Supporter of Each Other campaign is for everyone! Every person, club, organisation or company can join our campaign and become a #Supporterofeachother.

FBA: Can you share best practices that you’ve seen your member clubs take advantage of this campaign, to reach out to the communities and do something special, something different?

Hubert: “There’s a lot of, sometimes small, sometimes big initiatives that really contributed in a difficult time but now, I think it’s important to maintain that.”

Hubert highlighted some of the best practice examples that football organisations across Europe have carried out, including:

• FC Barcelona handing over Camp Nou title rights to the foundation to raise money for the fight against COVID-19
• Clubs supporting foodbanks throughout Europe e.g. Ferencvárosi Torna Club and FC Utrecht
• Clubs and supporters keep playing, organising eSports tournaments
• Clubs training from home e.g. FC Shakthar, AEK Athens and KAA Gent
• Online platforms to support other fans- e.g. Saints Foundation, Eredivisie, Heart of Midlothian FC and Chelsea FC Foundation

There has been so many more great, best practice examples and each day, new initiatives and activities are happening across the European football landscape!

You can keep up to date with the latest news regarding football organisations’ best practice examples during this difficult time, via EFDN’s Supporter of Each Other campaign website here.

A question from the audience: “Do you think that the pandemic period will make the clubs now even closer to the community and become even more involved in CSR?”

Hubert: “That’s what I hope is one of the good things that can come out of this, is that the management and boards of clubs realise that they don’t have to win the league or that they don’t have to win the Champions League to be valuable and that they can make a lot of impact, regardless of their size, regardless of how developed, the club is, how big the club is.”

“I think that this crisis also, with all the initiatives going on, I hope that will have a sustainable impact in a way that management and club boards think about what they do outside of their football games and of course everyone will tell that football is the most important part of the business but they realise that their business is perhaps not per say a business as such but a community or a point in the community where everyone comes together and that they can use that in a lot of different ways.”

“I really hope that, that is one of the positive things that we can learn and that management of clubs will hopefully use this in the coming years as well. As well as, it will inspire other clubs who were not engaged in community work or in social activities before the crisis and they now see that added value that it can have, too, on one side stay connected with their fans but equally, or even more important, actually that they’re making an impact in their community as well.”

FBA: All of your organisations are advocates of mainstreaming CSR in football, of trying to ensure it becomes part of every stakeholder’s DNA. What are your plans to turn this into a reality and do you think this crisis can accelerate it?

Jacob: “With team members, like the people and the organisations that are on his panel now, on this webinar, I think you can piece together, kind of coalitions that actually become the model for the kinds of actors that we wanna have the game populated by later.”

“I think we need other individuals and other organisations to join and it needs to be from people, stakeholders both inside and outside the sport.”

Hubert: “This is a time where football realises that there is a world outside of football.”

“With the people on this panel and organisations outside, I think its a good time to be involved, in that re-development football sector, where the organisations, look further than their own entity and really use this global crisis for the sector, to get something positive out of it.”

“What we do, is launch our Morethanfootball initiative or we try to combine clubs, leagues and FAs who usually don’t work always together to unite them or at least share best practices between them and see how they can develop for the future again, looking further than their own entity, looking further than their own personal aims and business target.”

“My hopes and what we would support is developing the sector to that new novel, where CSR and sustainability have a much more broader meaning and is much more important in the day to day activities of all of the organisations in the sector.”

#FBASERIES

Don’t worry if you missed the live webinar, you can head over to the FBA Youtube Channel and access Episode 6: “CSR in the Age of COVID-19 and Beyond” as well as all of the other #fbsseries by watching the video below or clicking here.