Johan Cruyff Institute leads debate on football management at the WFS17

Johan Cruyff Institute invited Fernando Revilla, Craig Foster and Gretar Steinsson to take the stage at WFS17 to discuss whether the football industry should be managed by former players

Johan Cruyff Institute was one of the main protagonists of the second edition of the World Football Summit, the great international football convention held in Madrid on October 16 and 17. In addition to attending the event as Academic Partner, the institution invited three international football experts and former students of the Johan Cruyff Institute to participate in the central panel of debates and conferences to discuss a topic that gives a lot to talk about: Should the Business of Football be managed by (former) Football Players?

To give their point of view on the subject were: Fernando Revilla, currently president of the America Division and member of the Executive Committee of FIFPro, general manager of the Association of Professional Football Players of Peru, and member of the FIFA Player Status Committee, after 10 years as a professional player; Craig Foster, renowned Australian football commentator and analyst with more than 14 years of experience covering national competitions, the UEFA Champions League, the Europa League, six FIFA World Cups (men’s and women’s) and the Copa America; he was CEO and president of the Professional Footballers Australia and, as a player, he was a player and captain of the Australian national team, as well as of historical British and Australian clubs; and Gretar Steinsson, currently technical director of Fleetwood Town, after playing for a number of clubs, among them Bolton Wonderers of the English Premier League, and for the Iceland national team. The three of them joint our director of the Master in Football Business in collaboration with FC Barcelona, Oliver Seitz, who was the moderator of the debate.

The Goya Theater in Madrid hosted the World Football Summit 2017, in a second edition that had more than 2,000 attendees from 70 different countries and the participation of around 60 first-rate speakers who addressed, throughout the two days of the convention, topical issues in the football industry.