2 May 2023 - 3:28 PM
Photo
IMAGO | Fortuna Düsseldorf fans during a home match against SV Sandhausen at Merkur Spiel-Arena, Düsseldorf.
Interview: Bundesliga club CEO on radical plan to reawaken sleeping giant
- Fortuna Dusseldorf CEO, Alexander Jobst, last week announced a new plan which will eventually offer free tickets to all of the club's home games.
- Jobst believes the scheme will put Fortuna’s supporters back at the heart of the matchday experience and create a closer connection between the club and the city.
- Why it matters: Jobst has ripped up the football business rule book in an attempt to fill empty seats and galvanise latent support. Could it be a model for other clubs to follow?
- The perspective: If successful, the plan could bring higher commercial revenue, creating a virtuous cycle of success for the club. But the move might come with a risk that you devaluate your own product?
Back in the noughties, when Sepp Blatter ruled over world football, it was joked that the FIFA president’s ceaseless predilection for new ideas to expand football’s reach was such that he had “50 ideas every day, 51 of which were bad.”
Quite how many of those ideas originated from FIFA’s marketing department, where Alexander Jobst held a Head of Sales role at the time, is one that can only be answered by historians of the organisation in years to come.
But Jobst, who is no
Get instant access by signing up for a 7-day free trial
No credit card, no commitments, and it will expire automatically.
You will receive a link that activates your trial in an email.