The stadium as an incubator beyond football - Interview with Magda Pozzo

Udine has been a happy island in Italian football for more than twenty seasons, a city in the north-east that has managed to dream of big international football and build a sustainable model in a business landscape that normally goes in the opposite direction. A model that has a name, or rather, a surname: Pozzo. The group that bought Udinese in 1986 and over time transformed it into a model of planning, sustainability and sporting success, building state-of-the-art sports facilities and scouting new unknown talents every year to bring them into big football. This story continues to this day, with the renovation of the Bluenergy Stadium, which can even accommodate fans in the hospitality areas built to make watching matches even more interesting and personalised. We spoke to Magda Pozzo, Chief Commercial Officer of Udinese Calcio, about the club's journey, its business philosophy and its future in sport and elsewhere.

- Udinese Calcio has established itself over the years as one of the most solid companies in Italian football, what are the three key concepts of your business philosophy?

Innovation, management approach and sustainability. Since we entered football, we wanted to apply an entrepreneurial approach to the world of football by immediately giving it an entrepreneurial flavour. This has allowed us to develop into a sustainable business model, with healthy balance sheets and a player recruitment system that is the envy of the world. The combination of these factors has allowed us to remain in Serie A for 29 consecutive years and achieve 11 European qualifications, a record-breaking number for a city of just under 100,000 inhabitants. Added to this is an innovative vision with which we always try to anticipate trends in football and become a reference in many areas: Suffice it to say that the Bluenergy Stadium is the second in Italy and operates 365 days a year and that, thanks to Udinese, tests for var and goal-line technology began in the early 2000s.

- Udinese invested a lot in facilities and stadium ownership beforehand. How do you see Italian football in 10 years' time?

I think that's the key: modern, multifunctional stadiums that maximise the fan experience and can be alive in the community 365 days a year. In Italy, our football is finally going in the right direction, even if there is still a long way to go, but I think the 2032 European Championship will accelerate this process. We as a club have always been clear about the vision that the stadium is an incubator for ideas beyond football. For this reason, we have invested in hospitality areas that have made a name for themselves on the international stage. These have been systematically sold out since the end of the last championship and more than 250 companies are represented at each match. We also organise over 100 corporate events and congresses at the stadium every year and, thanks to the collaboration with our main sponsor IOSONO FVG, the Bluenergy Stadium is included in the region's tourist circuit and attracts many visitors. Now we hope that, bureaucracy permitting, we will be able to complete the "Stadium 2.0" project, which will include a day care centre, medical centre, swimming pools and gyms - all community services in an area of more than 20,000 square metres within our stadium. I would say that this is the way I would like to see our movement go: modern football with modern stadiums that can generate alternative income to TV rights.

- Sustainability is one of the most important values for Udinese Calcio. How did you decide to neglect them in the various areas of the company?

I would say that sustainability is an all-round fundamental value for us. Before we talked about the economic sustainability of our corporate governance, but we also extend this value to environmental and social sustainability. Our green policy has enabled us to become an exemplary medium-sized club on the international stage. We owe this to a concrete policy for sustainability that we have initiated by involving our partners and encouraging them to take concrete steps towards this challenge. At the heart of this is the Bluenergy Stadium, which has been using energy from renewable sources for years thanks to our historic partner Bluenergy, saving more than 4850 tonnes of CO2 emissions; we are now working on a revolutionary project to install a photovoltaic system on the stadium that will make it the first carbon-free stadium in Italy. A historic step. Another example is our Macron jerseys, which have been made from a fabric obtained from recycled plastic bottles for four years now. We were the first Macron club in the world across all sports to do this and now our technical sponsor uses this fabric for all 100+ clubs. All these projects have led to Udinese being listed as the most sustainable club in Italy and the fourth most sustainable club in the world in the Brand Finance Football Sustainability Index and just a few weeks ago we were included in the ECA Sustainability Committee for the 2023/2027 cycle.

- Udinese has become synonymous with excellent scouting and player development. How does your scouting department work and what is the most important data when selecting an athlete?

Scouting has always been a resource for us in which we have put a lot of effort and investment. We have equipped ourselves with a structure that is the envy of the whole world, with scouts in every corner of the globe who are able to spot talent with exceptional timing and who, thanks to the expertise, professionalism and excellent facilities here in Udine, have everything they need to become champions. Zielinski, Bruno Fernandes, Molina, De Paul, Udogie, to name but a few, have followed this path, without forgetting the great talents of the present such as Bijol, Ebosele, Samardzic. When selecting players, our scouts rely mainly on their eye and experience, data is a useful but not decisive support in the selection of a profile.

We have received great feedback. The jersey was not only well received by our fans, but especially by the Under-25s. It's an innovative project that we launched thanks to our collaboration with the Camera della Moda Fashion Trust in Milan. We are convinced that football and footballers are becoming more and more iconic, especially in the minds of young people, considering that there are more than 2 billion fans in the world. For this reason, the idea was born to use the power of football to realise this innovative project focused on the development of young talent: Udinese is in fact very well known for its scouting and therefore the synergy with the Camera della Moda Fashion Trust, which trains and launches young fashion designers, was only natural. This year, the project allowed a great talent like Marcello to design our third jersey, but that was just the first step in a collaboration that will continue.

- Football and fashion are two worlds that have become very close in recent seasons. How do you plan to capitalise again on this great marketing and branding opportunity for Udinese in the world?

It's a great opportunity to spread our brand around the world and, above all, to use cool tools to reach a young fan base that sees and lives football in the age of social media. The game has become a totalising event where the eyes of the world allow us to enhance so many aspects, including commercial ones, related to the kits and the game that it's almost comparable to a fashion show in terms of media impact. So initiatives like this qualify us for them and also for the more than 2 million of our fans in all parts of the world who have allowed us, for example, to achieve great results with the jersey for the Fogolars Furlans 2020.

- There are still not as many women in leadership positions in Italian football as in other European leagues. What is your experience and how do you think this trend can be reversed?

Personally, I have never felt this sense of discrimination, nor do I believe that I have ever been viewed with suspicion in the world of football, nor in the world of industry in which I have worked in the past. However, I am pleased to note that we are making great progress in this regard worldwide and in Italy we are also growing very strongly in this respect, as witnessed, for example, by the appointment of Lina Souloukou as managing director of a top club like Roma, and I have also noticed it at European level in the ECA's sustainability working group, in which women have a high proportion.