Wael al Qadi: Fighting FIFA & football’s wealth gap
Oct 9, 2019 14:19:08 GMT
aghast and splitter like this
Post by Cantankerous Gas on Oct 9, 2019 14:19:08 GMT
Some may suggest Wael al Qadi is a glutton for punishment. In 2016 he and fellow Jordanian Prince Ali attempted to oust the seemingly immovable FIFA president Sepp Blatter. Although the presidential election bid was unsuccessful it ultimately led to the toppling of FIFA’s notorious House of Cards.
Shortly after, Al Qadi took the helm of Bristol Rovers, a club whose ship he is now trying to guide through the choppy waters of life in England’s League One.
Swapping FIFA’s ivory tower in Zurich for the boardroom of the Memorial Stadium was a dramatic shift in environment but three years later Al Qadi is still with Bristol Rovers and very much planning for the long-term.
“The idea of buying a club had been on my radar for a while,” Al Qadi explains to Sport Industry Insider. “I looked at clubs in Belgium and Spain but the UK is the best environment for investment, its laws are more mature and of course the passion for football is unparalleled.
“A friend of mine introduced to me Rovers and it was immediately clear that the club is a sleeping giant. It’s a really well established community, a huge fan base in the second biggest city in the south of England. Bristol as a whole hasn’t had much success in football before so this potential was something really exciting.”
On hearing that an owner from the Middle East was arriving in Bristol, there was a clamour of excitement and the rumour mill went into overdrive. Forums and phone-ins were awash with people wondering if it would be Sheikh Mansour mark II – hoping Al Qadi would plough an endless stream of cash into the club and propel Rovers all the way up to the glitz and glamour of the Premier League.
“Rather ridiculously, there were these huge expectations because the media basically blew everything out of proportion saying Rovers would be ‘the next Man City’,” Al Qadi recalls. “If that was the case we’d have bought a club in the Championship or Premier League, not one that had just been promoted to League Two!”
“Our whole aim has been to build Bristol Rovers up but do so in as sustainable a way as possible. We’ve focused on making the academy stronger, introduced a development squad to feed into that. There are so many clubs around us in the lower leagues who try to throw money at their problems but it’s not healthy.
“Fans are fans and I think a lot of the time they expect owners to burn their own money and basically just spend, spend, spend on improving the first team. They almost see that as your duty as an owner. But if you don’t spend in a sustainable way, fans won’t have a club to follow any more.”
The much-publicised plights of Bury, Bolton and lately Southend United illustrate the dangers of taking the risk-reward approach to club ownership, something all too common in the English Football League.
“What has happened at Bury, at Bolton, it’s disgraceful,” Al Qadi says. “It is gross mismanagement and makes me angry and very sad because you can see how devastating the impact is on the community. Imagine that happening to a club you love and support? It’s awful. We have to work to prevent such things happening in the future.
“Fans are fans and I think a lot of the time they expect owners to burn their own money and basically just spend, spend, spend on improving the first team. They almost see that as your duty as an owner. But if you don’t spend in a sustainable way, fans won’t have a club to follow any more.”
The much-publicised plights of Bury, Bolton and lately Southend United illustrate the dangers of taking the risk-reward approach to club ownership, something all too common in the English Football League.
“What has happened at Bury, at Bolton, it’s disgraceful,” Al Qadi says. “It is gross mismanagement and makes me angry and very sad because you can see how devastating the impact is on the community. Imagine that happening to a club you love and support? It’s awful. We have to work to prevent such things happening in the future.
.......Al Qadi certainly seems to have made his own organisation better, having watched Bristol Rovers achieve promotion from League Two to League One at the end of his first season at the helm. Three seasons of consolidation followed but off the pitch, there have big changes.
“A lot of work has been needed to restructure everything and put effective systems into place. Before it was a very old school way of doing things, which hadn’t changed for many years. We had to have a big upheaval, particularly on the commercial side of things.
“A new technical kit supplier has been brought in, and we have upgraded the ticketing system – we now have cards, electric scanners at the gates as well as improvements to the bars, club shop and the installation of a pitch side LED advertising system and big screen. We brought in Tom Gorringe, an experienced Premier League Commercial Director, from Brighton and he is making many important changes, notably to the sponsorship structure.
“The hardest decision came last season when we parted ways with [then manager] Darrell Clarke. We were bottom of the league around Christmas and after constructive discussions with Darrell it was mutually agreed the timing was right to make a change in the interests of both parties. Under the stewardship of Graham Coughlan, we managed to stay up so I’d say it was the right decision. But it was really tough to part company with Darrell because he was a club legend who had done a lot for Bristol Rovers, for which we, and all Gasheads [Bristol Rovers fans] will always be grateful.”
“A lot of work has been needed to restructure everything and put effective systems into place. Before it was a very old school way of doing things, which hadn’t changed for many years. We had to have a big upheaval, particularly on the commercial side of things.
“A new technical kit supplier has been brought in, and we have upgraded the ticketing system – we now have cards, electric scanners at the gates as well as improvements to the bars, club shop and the installation of a pitch side LED advertising system and big screen. We brought in Tom Gorringe, an experienced Premier League Commercial Director, from Brighton and he is making many important changes, notably to the sponsorship structure.
“The hardest decision came last season when we parted ways with [then manager] Darrell Clarke. We were bottom of the league around Christmas and after constructive discussions with Darrell it was mutually agreed the timing was right to make a change in the interests of both parties. Under the stewardship of Graham Coughlan, we managed to stay up so I’d say it was the right decision. But it was really tough to part company with Darrell because he was a club legend who had done a lot for Bristol Rovers, for which we, and all Gasheads [Bristol Rovers fans] will always be grateful.”
