Appointing one woman to an executive committee is not enough. The 'Four R' can help support and project women in football in a new era.

Hello! Welcome back to?PITCHSIDE MONITOR,?your one stop guide to club management.?This week we will:

• Take a closer look at football in the Scandinavian region
• Hear from Lise Klaveness , President of the Norges Fotballforbund
• Get a better insight into the transfer market of the Scandinavian/ Nordic region

First up, is our section on club management.

For those who are curious about the development of football over the course of the next decades, the Scandinavian and Nordic regions will be of particular interest. In very broad terms, 'Scandinavia' can take on several meanings.

Geographically, the Scandinavian peninsula stretches from the Baltic to the Barents sea and includes the whole of Norway and Sweden. Although, Scandinavia as a name derives from an old mountain range called Skanderna starting in Denmark, running north through Norway and Sweden. Therefore, from a limited cultural and historical perspective, Scandinavia includes Denmark, Norway and Sweden. From a broader cultural and historical perspective, Scandinavia can be extended to include not only Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; but also the Faroe Islands, Finland,?and?Iceland.

The idea of the Nordic region, underpinned by the existence of the Nordic Council, moves us away from the geographical anchor of Scandinavia as tied to the namesake peninsula, and includes some additional territories spread across the Northern (Nordic) space, such as Greenland, as well as some Norwegian dependencies like Svalbard, which are not considered part of Scandinavia. In recent years, some discussions have emerged on whether the 'Nordic' concept could be further extended to include other territories that are located in a nearby geographical context, and have similar socio-economic and developmental aspirations; such as Estonia (normally considered within the Baltic context) or even Scotland (constituent part of the United Kingdom).

Though the Scandinavian/Nordic countries are not associated with the tags of dense populations, they are well developed economically, socially, and technologically. On one hand, this means that they tend to have plenty of resources, and on the other – a strong community and a social focus. Nordic countries are amongst the most sport-active countries in the world, with the unique distinction of maintaining active sport participation over an entire lifetime.

Despite their shared economic, social, and cultural traits; interestingly enough in football, the Scandinavian/ Nordic countries have gone their own way, and produced very unique and specific football cultures. A few decades ago, Sweden was probably the most prominent of them, in terms of their football gravitas: from winning the Olympic gold in football in 1948 to hosting a World Cup, which served as a key launchpad for Pele’s glorious career, to IFK G?teborg winning two UEFA Cup titles in the 1980s, to Lennart Johansson’s 17 years as UEFA President (a record that will probably never be beaten now, given the term limits imposed); it was a classic 'medium' country with a big football footprint. However, the development of the game since the 1990s, ironically shaped to a great extent by the likes of Johansson with the transformation of the European Cup into the UEFA Champions League that we know today, has meant that smaller and medium-sized countries have a much harder time to succeed on the pitch. One of the particularities of Swedish football is the social nature of its professional clubs: following the German model of associations remaining in charge, either directly or with the participation of private management companies. Swedish clubs have not fared well in the European context if compared to their peers. But the potential remains very high, if they can find the right mechanism that allows sustained growth.

Denmark is one of the more liberal football ecosystems in Europe, open to experimentation and innovation. F.C. K?benhavn was only formed in 1992 and was very much the 'Red Bull Salzburg' of its time: introducing a new identity, a new commercial-focused approach, and a new entertainment oriented business model with the Parken Group. Today Denmark is a nodal point in the emerging map of multi-club ownership groups.

Norway is an interesting case, it is a country that has seen the best and the worst in terms of the changing power balance in European football in the recent decades. In the 1990s and 2000s, Rosenborg Ballklub played 11 times in the Champions League group stages, cementing its domestic dominance in the process. This cycle of success is something that the current UEFA competition and distribution structure does tend to create, and in smaller countries it can lead to one or two clubs dominating ad infinitum, or at least until internal factors force them to give up the mantle. However, the retreat of Rosenborg from the European summit has given an opportunity for other Norwegian clubs to emerge; and rethink their entire national value chain with a more collective approach. Today, for the first time in many years, Norway outranks all its Nordic neighbours in the UEFA rankings.

In Finland, football traditionally has not been the number one sport. Today's younger generation seems to be choosing football, which has meant that, football has overtook ice hockey as the most practiced team sport in the country. A key highlight was Finland’s first-ever participation in the final stage of a major national team tournament at the UEFA EURO 2020 European Football Championship . Ice hockey is still the more significant economic driver of the Finnish sport industry, probably due to the fact that it has delivered much more international success to the country, with multiple World Championships and Olympic medals.

Today, football in the Nordic region faces some key challenges such as: dropping participation numbers, the need to bring about more equality and inclusion in the participation and management of football, and the business model of the European football industry that creates a glass ceiling for smaller and medium sized nations without a large internal market. As existing case studies from all these countries demonstrate, solutions are always available in football.

In our Football Talks section this week, we caught up with Lise Klaveness . We asked Lise a few questions, and here is what she had to say.

1) Today we are symbolically celebrating the International Women’s Day. You are currently a candidate for the UEFA Executive Committee. Your campaign is focussed on transparency, inspired by the Norwegian model, and you are also calling upon check and balance control in the football industry. Your thought process here? I do really care about diversity and human rights, but I am also a football leader, which includes the different National teams and the domestic competitions. We definitely need more gender diversity, but an issue we currently have in football is that either we have people who are coming from the women’s football side or from the men’s one and very few who have seen both sides in their own shoes, so to say. In the current UEFA ExCo, we do not have that and I hope we improve that. We have competent people on the men’s side, but there are few female ones. For some time, however, this level has been slightly increasing; but it needs to go faster. I got a nomination from the Norwegian Committee with a spirit to gain additional goals for football and break the ice. Also, for me, from a lower league perspective: men's and women’s football are equally important. The game has its own value, we need to look at the commercial side of the lower leagues, wealth gaps, inflation, the access list for both mens and women's. It was interesting to see your ( LTT Sports ) report to the European Parliament. I am very grateful for the opportunity to use knowledge and to bring what can be useful to UEFA. When I was nominated for the position at the Norges Fotballforbund , it was done on the basis of an urge to change, to improve the league and to compete. Now, I'm running for the UEFA ExCo with the same spirit. My candidacy is not political though. I am from the administration side of football but clearly it helps my career to have been a professional. I am a pragmatic person from the game, not a coach, I have meetings all day! We are witnessing the lack of stability of finances for clubs, there is inflation and it is getting harder for everyone to balance it. But we need to be realistic and acknowledge the social changes.

2) In one of our previous #PitchSideMonitor editions, we mentioned that in the world of football, very few former players are key figures in football and are usually surrounding top executives. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge once told that his second career as executive, though not as fun as his first as a player, still brought him a lot of satisfaction. What do we need to do to have this as a norm and not an exception? When you play, you are very far from being a Sport Director or a President, and very few players have the stamina during their active years to focus on something more than their game. There is also the adulation that comes with being a famous player; from an early age people are telling you that you are great - it is difficult to deal with that. But learning is key. With small measures and attitudes, we can look at these young players as future leaders; then you change how you teach these kids. Having worked with players and played myself, we want to help clubs and academies adapt to the needs of the athletes. I always say that, the best mix for a football organisation board, is to have at least 20% coming from the field. We don’t need to have 70-100% of people like that, because you also need other inputs, but certainly at least 20%.

3) In a mid sized national association like Norway, you have developed probably one of the best football players, both in the men’s and women’s game. How is this possible? With one player it is always difficult to explain, and someone like Erling Haaland is just an exceptional talent. But at the same time in Norway, we see that now, compared to 10 years ago, we have more talent coming out of the country. Not just Erling Haaland or Ada Hegerberg, there is also Martin Odegaard and several others. The recipe is hard work; that is the secret. 10 years ago, the clubs and federation recognised that they weren’t doing a good enough job with player development. The Norwegian way is not very different from other countries; but being a big country with a small number of people makes distance a challenge. So, the cooperation between stakeholders is very important. Because of the large distances, there needs to be development centres all around, as 9-year-old kids cannot drive large distances to big clubs. They need to play where they are, so we need a lot of local clubs; and then the top clubs must respect the local clubs and only recruit in the later stage allowing development and good transition. We also have a very big culture of volunteer coaches. And now we see it working! This is the far end of the 'European Model', and maybe it will not be for everyone, of course. Erling Haaland came from a Bryne Fotballklubb , a smaller sized club, not a top club. Martin Odegaard alos came also from a smaller club called Drammen Strong. They only move to bigger clubs later in their career, not at 9. Maybe this is slower than at AFC Ajax , for example, but it brings results in our environment.

In our Bottom 49 section this week, we would like to invite your attention to the data we have collected on transfer expenditure and income of football clubs in the Scandinavian/ Nordic regions. Our research is consolidated below.

In our Football Insight section this week, we would like to invite your attention to the 'Four R' method.

In recent years, the major football governing bodies have received pressure to include at least one woman in their executive board, with the likes of FIFA insisting on one woman representative per confederation, for instance. Needless to say that further commitment of including women in the decision-making process is essential, not because of gender aspects, but simply because it provides a crucial angle and reflection with increased diversity (as referred to in our LTT Sports Issue 3). But merely appointing one woman to an executive committee does not automatically mean that women’s football (and women IN football!) is being represented at the highest levels of decision-making. Evaluating and assessing progress though the Four R-method presented below, could prove to be a concrete tool to help support and project women’s and men’s football in a new era.

We would like to take the opportunity this week, to highlight our work?with Malm? FF . We supported Malm? FF and facilitated a board strategy session in Sweden. We provided an analysis to assess the impacts of COVID on the European football industry by identifying a matrix of risks and opportunities. For example, in September 2020 we assessed the possibility of a launch of a breakaway European Super League and its potential impact on clubs something that later occurred six?months?after. Crystal ball? No. Risk management? Yes. More details of our work with the club can be found here.

Olivier Jarosz and Adam Metelski will be attending the ESSMA - European Stadium and Safety Management Association Summit 2023 happening at Legia Warsaw. Olivier will join Katie McIntyre , Arnaud Delpech, Jacob Nielsen , and Julien LEPRON in a panel titled "Is B2B Dead?".

Konrad Go?dzior is attending the SportBiz Summit happening this week in Warsaw.

That brings us to the end of this week’s newsletter. We hope you found eye-opening insights from our content this week. Each week, we will be curating exclusive content for you from the club management ecosystem. So, stay tuned for more and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter?here!

Before we take your leave this week, we wanted to take the opportunity to wish all our readers a Happy International Women's Day.

LTT Sports is an advisory firm focused on connecting football strategy and operations based on experience, analysis and a strong network. At LTT Sports, we have created a set of services for football organisations, providing transversal solutions at any level of the professional football pyramid – to boost performance off the pitch, directly impacting on-pitch results.

*** Disclaimer: LTT Sports is an independent think tank aimed to be a platform of discussion amongst football stakeholders. The answers received for our interviews are personal views of the interviewee and/ or the organisation he or she may represent and strictly do not represent our views on the subject matter.

Contributors to this week's newsletter:?Adam Metelski,?Olivier Jarosz,?Konstantin Kornakov, Javier Alejandro Kuan Ayala

Editor: Ajay Abraham