In Focus/ gunnercookeSport: A New Horizon For Football

Former EFL club CEO, and now gunnercookeSport lead, Steve Kavanagh, talks about opportunities, the impending football regulator and ensuring someone’s horizon scanning for your side.

A lot of challenges are coming down the road for football clubs in Britain over the next few years. A new football regulator for England on the one hand, growing investment and audience opportunities from outside the UK on the other.

The question is how can clubs already juggling the multiple balls of day-to-day business navigate their way through these challenges to deliver the best for their clubs with the finite time its leaders have?

The area of professional support services for sports business leaders is growing, and one former EFL Chief Executive well-versed in the needs of sides big and small has joined the team of one such organisation to drive opportunity for change in UK football.

Former Millwall, Charlton and Southend CEO, and EFL board member, Steve Kavanagh, has now joined the sports division of legal and professional services firm gunnercooke, whose tiered approach will allow clubs to have big ideas while still sweating the small stuff.

“I know how it is for C-Suite leaders in football clubs,” said Kavanagh, who has spent over two decades at the top of sport clubs – building relationships with industry suppliers, politicians and stakeholders of the game.

“You’re so focused on everything that’s happening now. You’ve got Saturday games, Tuesday games…you’ve got a manager saying who they want to buy. Then you’ve got the marketing department needing something…then a HR issue starts off over there.

“You get so engrossed in the whole piece that finding space in your diary to take a step back and really understand what is going on and take that more holistic view is really tricky.

“Sometimes you do need someone who’s not wading through the weeds of the business to scan the horizon for you. To use their knowledge of the environment of football business, but then also be able to pull in the advice of other experts, like legal or compliance, into one plan.

“What we are bringing from gunnercooke is a basket of services which you can use holistically to set a better course for your club. Or just to be able to dip into one or a couple of those services to resolve specific challenges holding your side back at the moment.

“Some of them are obviously legally based, with law being our core offering. For example, we’ve aided clubs with FA charges because they come at you when you’re least expecting them. And we’ve developed cases for potential tribunal hearings where there’s been a dispute over an academy player the club may have lost without compensation from another side.

“These are all unusual things that come to you that are not in your day-to-day, but could absolutely define where the club is going both on and off the pitch.”

Meeting the needs of a new English football regulator and global investment interest are two such challenges growing in the time demanded by boardrooms. But in both, Kavanagh says common sense will always be the winner when navigating these subjects.

“We must be clear and say there will be an independent football regulator. So, those hiding their head in the sand over it are not being realistic. You have to understand the mood music.

“Football has a place in our communities that goes beyond running a business. But, as a result, football businesses now have the responsibility to make sure they match that community vision and their work can stand up to an independent regulator, which means they are scrutinised to a much higher level.

“Which may be why, in part, people are looking at an independent football regulator as the solution to ensuring clubs and the sport remains compliant. And it’s why MPs have started to look into football more and largely support regulation, rightly or wrongly.”

But Kavanagh says clubs should not fear a football regulator. “First and foremost, as a club, you should be running yourself in a way that, if the regulator comes along, you can answer those questions about your financial stability without any problems. Your house should be in order whether there’s a regulator or not.

“Where gunnercooke can add value is to help as a second pair of eyes on a club’s governance and compliance processes to know they stand up to measures of common decency. But, having been involved in many discussions with government officials in my other football roles over the years, we also know whether a club’s standards would meet where the politicians see the standards need to set.”

One area a new football regulator may struggle with is the potential value of any foreign investment into UK sides. Many non-British residents and organisations have invested in the sport in this country – to varying degrees of success. gunnercooke sits in the middle of that growing dynamic, by being able to offer advice to potential suitors and clubs about how they grow either their global investment or their brand footprint in a measured way.

“In any other industry or sector, a £10m business should not have an international reputation. But it does with football. It has got that place in our hearts and in our in our world, and that’s now gone global. That growth is only going to continue.

“We are here to use the expertise we have in football business management and the law which facilitates our football pyramid, and offer that strategic advice to potential investors, so they get it right, or help clubs open doors to new partnerships for them to unlock their true value in other nations.”

And Kavanagh says, this isn’t just for the big clubs with the big budgets to open those doors.

“gunnercookeSport really is a start-up within a company which has disrupted and redefined its core industry. As a result, we can have the flexible ‘start-up’ mentality, but call on the skills of over 500 legal, business, compliance and financial experts worldwide, as well as those decades of sports knowledge and relationships we have in the team.

“Having worked at the coalface of clubs like Millwall and Charlton, I know we can support clubs of any size with a big ambition with anything from information, to process, to strategy.

“For sure, there are other sports law firms out there. But I think what helps set gunnercookeSport apart is having the in-house expertise of someone who’s been a CEO, and served on the EFL board and FA Committees, to help inform decision-making and provide that knowledge-based support.”

Visit: gunnercookesport.com or email: info@gunnercooke.com for more information