The business behind the game: why organisational strength deserves investment

Football clubs make decisions every day that shape their future. Spending commitments, commercial agreements, infrastructure, staffing and relationships with supporters all carry consequences beyond the current season.

Those decisions depend on the strength of the organisation behind them: the quality of its information, the clarity of its responsibilities and its ability to turn plans into action.

For club leadership, investing in that capability deserves serious consideration. The value extends beyond completing a review or producing a report. It lies in understanding the organisation well enough to make informed decisions, direct resources towards meaningful priorities and maintain oversight as circumstances change.

That is the purpose behind FASE.

A management responsibility with long-term consequences

The financial pressures facing football give this discussion particular urgency.

The Independent Football Regulator’s October 2026 draft State of the Game report identified widespread losses, dependence on owner funding and weaknesses in contingency planning. More than a quarter of clubs, it reported, would be unable to survive beyond a month if owner funding were withdrawn.

These are structural challenges. No organisational framework or software platform can resolve the economics of football by itself. Club leadership nevertheless needs a clear understanding of its own position, exposure and capacity to respond.

A financial forecast is essential. So are the responsibilities, controls and decisions surrounding it. Leadership needs to know how assumptions are challenged, how material commitments are approved and what happens when circumstances move away from the plan.

Organisational strength also extends beyond finance. Supporter relationships, environmental responsibilities, internal capability and credible reporting influence how a club operates and how others understand it.

In research on football club financial reporting, Morrow (2013) argues for a fuller picture of club performance and accountability, reflecting football’s wider social and organisational context.

Clubs are businesses, employers and institutions with significance to the communities around them. Their management information needs to support that range of responsibilities.

From research to a connected organisational approach

FASE’s foundations lie in my postgraduate research into sustainability in professional football. The study brought together academic literature, policy and documented club practices around four connected themes: governance, environmental management, stakeholder engagement and transparency.

A recurring question concerned implementation. How do commitments become established practices? What connects a strategy to responsibility, resources, evidence and review?

The original study provided an exploratory foundation. FASE’s subsequent development has extended that thinking into a broader organisational management approach, with explicit financial governance and a clearer connection between assessment, improvement and ongoing oversight.

Anagnostopoulos, Byers and Kolyperas (2017) examined strategic decision-making in charitable foundations associated with English football clubs. Their analysis drew on 32 manager interviews and showed that decision-making overlapped several strategic perspectives. That specific context matters: the study does not assess the whole management of a club. For FASE, it provides a useful reason to consider the organisational context and different perspectives behind decisions, rather than rely on a single administrative view.

Fernández-Villarino (2021) examines the practical application of sustainability and social responsibility through the Social Fair Play project in Spanish football. Its discussion includes the importance of organising information, measurement, reporting and staff capability.

Adam and colleagues (2025) examine how sustainability regulations influenced strategy, resource allocation and organisational responsibilities at Eintracht Frankfurt. As a single-club study, it offers a contextual example of implementation reaching across leadership, specialist roles and operational processes.

These studies inform the questions FASE addresses. Our practical task is to connect an understanding of the organisation with decisions about what happens next.

Four pillars, one organisational picture

The FASE Framework provides a structured basis for examining that task across four pillars.

Governance & Financial Governance

How the organisation is directed and overseen, including responsibilities for financial planning, decisions, controls and risk. Leadership needs to understand who can commit the club, how plans are challenged and how agreed priorities are followed through.

Environmental Management

How the club understands its impacts, manages resources and assesses the outcomes of its actions. Stadiums, training facilities, matchday activity and travel connect environmental responsibilities with operational decisions.

In research on North American professional sport organisations, Babiak and Trendafilova (2011) found both strategic and legitimacy-related motives for adopting environmental management practices. Although the setting differs from English football, the research helps frame environmental management as an organisational consideration with strategic motivations.

Stakeholder Engagement

How people affected by the club contribute to relevant decisions and how their views inform the organisation’s response. Meaningful engagement needs an understanding of who should be involved, the circumstances affecting their participation and how feedback will be considered.

Trail and McCullough (2020) developed and tested a sustainability campaign evaluation model with participants in a running event. Its relevance here is the disciplined attention to audiences, attitudes, constraints and evaluation. It does not establish how every football supporter will respond; it offers a useful research perspective on designing and assessing participation.

Transparency & Reporting

The quality of information used to explain the club’s position, support accountability and demonstrate progress. Leadership needs to understand what supports a reported position, how measures are defined and which questions remain unresolved. Appropriate reporting also respects privacy and commercial confidentiality.

Connecting the pillars around a club decision

Consider a proposed stadium energy investment. Leadership needs to examine affordability, approval responsibilities and the effect on wider financial commitments. It also needs relevant environmental information, input from affected people where appropriate and a basis for reviewing results.

The four pillars provide perspectives on that same decision. They help organise the questions that need answering and the evidence required to answer them.

Football-specific guidance contributes to this approach. FASE’s Environmental Management pillar draws on UEFA’s Carbon Footprint Calculator Methodology, which addresses emissions associated with mobility, facilities, purchased goods and services, and logistics. UEFA also provides a Carbon Footprint Calculator and supporting resources.

The relevance is practical: understanding the information available, identifying gaps and establishing how progress can be assessed.

Specialist expertise leads the interpretation

A framework provides structure. Its usefulness depends on how it is applied.

A policy document can establish what an organisation intends to do. Understanding how that policy operates requires discussion, supporting evidence and informed judgement.

FASE’s consultants and specialist advisers provide that interpretation. Our multidisciplinary approach brings together research, governance, financial and legal perspectives, with relevant specialist input shaped around the engagement.

Our consultants lead the review and interpretation within their areas of expertise. They help leadership distinguish between a documented gap, an uncertainty requiring clarification and a priority requiring action. Their role extends to explaining the significance of findings and identifying proportionate next steps.

Some issues require targeted intervention. Others may be addressed through clearer responsibility, stronger internal understanding or a considered change to an existing process. The starting point is the club’s circumstances and capability.

Technology gives the approach continuity

FASE brings Technology, Framework and Expertise together within one organisational management model.

Technology has a defined role: connecting evidence, findings, priorities, responsibilities and progress over time. Our Clarity and Club Portal demonstrations show how that workflow is structured, from organisational review and supporting evidence to leadership visibility and improvement activity.

The management need continues after the initial findings are discussed. Evidence changes. People move roles. Actions are completed, delayed or reconsidered. Leadership needs to retain an understanding of the original position and what has happened since.

That continuity is central to the technology proposition. It connects the baseline established through FASE Clarity, targeted improvement through FASE Advance and capability development through FASE Academy.

Specialists remain responsible for interpretation within their areas of expertise. The technology provides the structure through which information and activity can remain connected.

Seeing organisational capability as a long-term investment

For a club considering FASE, the commercial question is whether the work will support decisions and responsibilities that matter.

The assessment should include whether leadership can:

• Identify its most significant organisational priorities.
• Understand the evidence and uncertainty behind them.
• Allocate responsibility and resources appropriately.
• Maintain useful records as people and circumstances change.
• Review whether agreed actions have strengthened organisational practice.

These are appropriate tests of value. They establish a basis for evaluating an engagement over time, rather than judging it solely by the delivery of a report.

FASE aims to build around the work clubs already do, using existing information, systems and specialist provision where appropriate. Recommendations should reflect significance, resources and capacity, with a manageable route from understanding to action.

An assessment should lead to an understood priority. A priority should lead to accountable action. A later review should establish what changed.

A clear purpose for FASE

FASE is a technology-led organisational management business for professional sport, beginning with football.

Our purpose is to help clubs connect what they know about their organisation with the decisions, responsibilities and improvements needed to strengthen it.

Through expert-led review, a consistent Framework and a defined technology proposition, we bring a connected approach to organisational understanding and improvement.

The ambition is to make that discipline a sustained part of how clubs operate: embedded in leadership decisions, informed by relevant expertise and supported by evidence that remains useful over time.

For clubs pursuing long-term ambitions, the organisation behind the football deserves deliberate investment. That is where FASE’s work begins.

References and further reading

1. Independent Football Regulator (2026). Draft State of the Game report: official announcement.
2. Morrow, S. (2013). Football Club Financial Reporting: Time for a New Model? Sport, Business and Management, 3(4), 297–311.
3. Anagnostopoulos, C., Byers, T. and Kolyperas, D. (2017). Understanding strategic decision-making through a multi-paradigm perspective: The case of charitable foundations in English football. Sport, Business and Management, 7(1), 2–20.
4. Fernández-Villarino, R. (2021). Sustainability in the football industry: An approach to the gap between theoretical formulation and practical application, through the results of the Social Fair Play project. Heliyon, 7(6), e07318.
5. Adam, S., Müller-Thümen, F., Kaiser, S. and Hovemann, G. (2025, published online). Kicking towards sustainability: the role of institutional pressures in German professional football. Managing Sport and Leisure.
6. Babiak, K. and Trendafilova, S. (2011). CSR and environmental responsibility: motives and pressures to adopt green management practices. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 18(1), 11–24.
7. Trail, G. T. and McCullough, B. P. (2020). Marketing sustainability through sport: testing the sport sustainability campaign evaluation model. European Sport Management Quarterly, 20(2), 109–129.
8. UEFA. Carbon Footprint Calculator Methodology.
9. UEFA. Carbon Footprint Calculator and supporting resources.
10. Duxbury, B. (2025). Developing a Sustainability Framework for Professional Football Clubs: A Systematic Review of Standards, Practices and Strategic Value. Unpublished MSc Football Business dissertation.