good afternoon everyone and welcome to a new webinar organized by johan cruyff institute we will

dedicate today's session to talk about leadership in world in global sporting events with a woman
who has worked on a variety of top international events it's my pleasure to be joined by mareli flores
currently women's tournament manager at fifa mareli is a multilingual global sport events and
project manager with experience delivering fifa world cups olympic games ufo competitions and
boxing world championships having delivered nine fifa world cups of different categories she has had
the opportunity to work in 20 countries in all continents and is currently project lead of the fifa u-20
women's world cup costa rica 2022 before giving him her the floor i would like to remind you that if
you have any technical issues you can use the chat tab on the top right of your screen and we will be
happy to assist you please use the question tab to type your inquiries for mareli any time during her
presentation we aim for an interactive session so you don't need to wait until she finishes her speech
to send us the questions or comments you like having made the presentations uh let's get started
good afternoon morelia and thank you so much for being here with us hello thank you very much i'm
very happy with the invitation and appreciate the time that you dedicate to share my experiences
with the audience okay madeli so i give you the floor thank you very much so welcome to the
webinar on leadership in sporting global events i'm gonna be presenting some slides we also have a
video there and also you will be able to interact as hema says as much as you can as much as you
want with the questions during the presentation feel free to ask so for the next uh topics i'll give you
a bit of my background i have a bachelor in marketing and in piano performance this combination of
careers gave me the opportunity to start working organizing chamber music concerts in mexico
where i'm from and then after two three years organizing concerts my dream was to organize
different sport events particularly football because i'm a fan of football but i also like other sports so i
went to switzerland to do my master's in sport management to the asts which is based in lausanne
and with the aim to work in the sports industry after that therefore i then went to the international
tennis federation to london for an internship where i learned a lot about event management in
sports and development then i had the opportunity to join aiva to do world championships and
different event seminars congress technical development courses in many countries of the world and
many also corners in different continents and then i went to the olympic games and and all these
activities have required certain skills and abilities to successfully deliver them after that i fulfilled my
dream to get into football in uefa was my first job in as a formal uh contract during a champions
league matches administration match operations at the late stage i did the women's champions
league season and the final so it was very interesting to deal with different continents as well in fifa
now because football is everywhere and sports are everywhere so that's why i could visit many
countries and deal with people from different cultures different backgrounds that are there
organizing all kinds of sporting events in the next slides i will share with you my experience on the
different events also some abilities and some uh things that i had to adjust because when you travel
in the world doing events it's not always the same people it's not always the same way of doing
things so i'm going to try to explain how it worked for for us in the different tournaments and as you
can see there's many events around the world and also in different places where people think
differently they also have different times for meals even basic things are very different and it's very
interesting to deal with all these when you are preparing an event so i will pass to the next slide my
main objective in the food in the iva in the boxing federation was to organize world championships
but also organizing olympic qualifying events this is a picture from the olympic qualifying event in
brazil it was one of my main projects and the project that i really enjoyed it because i was over
responsible for the delivery so i had to take care of different uh set up for the venues i also work it in
the transportation plans in the accumulation where the teams will stay how to plan the logistics so
for the bossing competitions you have different sessions depending on the weight of the boxers so
you need to have frequent shuttles and frequent organization of the traffic as well because we were
in rio so it was a good challenging environment to deal with with the traffic in rio and i also have the
chance to coordinate the areas such as marketing translation services for the teams that come from
abroad and non-portuguese speaking which was all the teams except for brazil and also in this um
you require a lot of people skills because in this part of the world people are very open very sensitive
to the foreigners brazil is a country with multicultural population they have immigrants from
germany from italy second generations from japan so it's a very diverse country and you learn how to
deal with different mindsets and different way of doing things you also need to leverage and you also
need to be prepared for unexpected circumstances which also makes you to be reliable that the
event will be starting on time with no delays because you have a date in which the tournament
needs to happen and this also was a good experience because um leading the team you have a
multicultural team even in the organization like we had people from russia from brazil from spain
from turkey so we all had to work together and the objective for us is the same so this is very
important to keep in mind the big picture when you are organizing an event so whatever happens
whatever maybe problems conflicts sometimes between the cultures you need to be open in order
to have a very good collaboration that makes the event the best at that time so this was my
experience in in brazil then i will go to london in during the london olympic games there it's very
different because in brazil you can go to the venue you can inspect the venue you can go as many
times as you can to work on the flows to work in different from scratch but in olympic games you
have the local uh organizing committee the oco who does all this planning and you arrive in a pretty
much almost said venue they so there is already a team who have thought about where to put the
ring where to put the seats for spectators and in this case you are you feel more and outsider at the
beginning because you start to check their planning to check also the different flows where the boxes
will come by where the media needs to see it and it's everything according to olympic standard so
this also makes it very important that in some events you can control pretty much everything that
you do but in other events you need to adjust to the policies of the organization that owns the event
and this was the case there so it's the time is very short because the games are going to happen and
you will not have that much option of visits and also not much time to go there so it's uh the process
of adaptation to the circumstances and to the present moment needs to be very quick otherwise you
will try to catch up and if you're not fast enough to adapt and to collaborate with the people on site
it's not going to be very good for the event here also we have different officials that operate during
the competitions they also come from every corner of the world we need to have the competition
officials from all the continents in the olympic games and this is also to deal with their own culture to
deal with their own thinking with their own timings so this also needs to be very well uh thought that
you can react because sometimes in the countries maybe they are not very quick with visas or
they're not very quick with travel so you need also to anticipate so in order to make the event
happen and that everyone who needs to be there is there on time so this is uh the experience with
with london then i will go to the [Music] to fifa uh youth world cups in this case the women's
workouts which i have done since 2016 and the intention of our organization is to give the
opportunity to countries that otherwise couldn't make it for the to organize a big event they don't
have a big uh amount of stadiums big styles for example to host a world cup like russia or now we
have three countries mexico canada usa so the intention as well is to develop the people in the
country and this is also part of the legacy that we live when we organize events in the different
locations it can be the youth events it can be the beach soccer world cup it can be a futsal world cup
so any event that is not the the big uh world cup and also women's world cup that now is becoming
bigger and i will also speak about it later on so the development as well uh is for the country
normally we used to choose a project inside the country facing and addressing a problem and an
issue that is in the host so this has been very nice and very productive we know that we cannot
change the world in one day but or in one tournament in one month that we are there but you can
contribute at least to raise awareness so you the tournament is not going just the players go and
then they go back even for the players there is opportunities to to interact with the local people
which also gives them a broader experience other than just uh playing and training so this is also
something that we like to do with the youth tournaments because there is the opportunity to give
something back to the community while the tournament is going on and another point on this is to
have the lead and raise also the awareness that we have these tournaments to develop mostly the
under 17 to develop the players in the different parts of the world so for these tournaments we
allocate the very equal uh slots for each continent that all the continents have the same opportunity
to send the equal number of teams so they can also build their development programs around this
opportunity that they have to participate in the in the work of it it can be on the under 17 or the
under 20. so these are very uh i will show you two cases of very nice projects and very nice legacy of
these tournaments the first one that i did as a fifth employee was the jordan under 17. in 2016 and
this event really changed the perception of the people around the world and the people inside
jordan for women to play football i have been in contact lately lately with some colleagues who work
it in this tournament back in jordan they were you're they are jordanians and they told me that after
this under 17 women's world cup the perception with time changed and also the support that they
have from the people also from the parents of the girls who play football has been very very well
received because they could see that it's nothing that they can be prevented on and the team even
the women's team has better results than the men's team these days so this was also a project that it
was the first women's world cup in the middle east which was a very um important event for the
development of football for the women in sports actually the llc on this tournament was led by
women all the key positions the head of stadiums the head of the tournament the head of
transportation head of volunteers head of team services they are all women and this was the
opportunity for the country to empower the women and to change the perception of of women in
that region of the world so they also were very very good renation committee they renovated the
pitches they also these speeches are a legacy that is leading to the development of football there so
they are used by clubs they are used by teams with uh girls teams as well and they also have an
important impact on the development of the people because sports is not just about playing sports
is about developing the person you have some opportunities to meet people that maybe otherwise
you wouldn't meet just by playing football you also have the opportunity to feel the teamwork to feel
the collaboration to understand what teamwork is because without teamwork you cannot win a
match so sports is also about this development of the person and to have the opportunity in jordan
to organize this tournament gave also the opportunity to the refugees that are in the satari camp to
go out from the camp and actually see a football uh world cup in their country and these are very
touching situations because the refugees normally don't go out from the camp so for them was also
the opportunity to to see a sport event to be part of the welcome so somehow and it was a very nice
tournament they also um take it they can took advantage of the tournament to do social campaigns
against stabilism actually this ad that is in the slide it's uh they had that they uh produced and they
won a prize in uh for this campaign so they really took the opportunity not only to organize a
tournament to leave pitches and stadiums as legacy but also to involve the community and to give a
message a social responsibility action so it's the power of football and how also football can can live
in in the world for different social causes and also the development of the people the next project it
was very special it was very different this one was in papua new guinea so it's a country in the pacific
very close to australia and in this country was very interesting to anticipate several things that
anticipation is part of this uh leading a team and is part of making sure that things can happen but
you can prevent some of them so in this country it's mostly a rugby country therefore there was not
much infrastructure for football so the fact that it was not that much infrastructure it means that you
had to import materials from australia from china which are the closest big countries around papua
new guinea and this was very interesting because most of the countries you go and you see pretty
much football pitches from time to time when you're in the road but here they had not even that so
it was also to grow the sport in that region to raise awareness and there was a very nice
governmental action so as the country is very far and it's not very easy to get there you have only
flights certain days of the week and i assume now with and they make is even more difficult but at
the time the government what they did is like okay the teams are coming from far away they they are
under 20 persons their parents might not be able to make it because for whatever reason so the
government organized groups of supporters so they organized local people to be following the teams
in their different matches so for example in the picture here you can see japan so there was a group
of people from papua new guinea whose mission organized by the government was to follow japan
in older matches so this really helped to fill in the stadiums helped the people to be involved in the
tournament in their country and also helped the players to be seen and to feel the environment of a
world cup so this was a very special action that they did there and in also unfortunately in papua new
guinea there is a are an issue that the federation wanted to raise awareness which is the violence
against the women and the kids so during some matches there were uh com the campaign was
shown with banners and messages from the team captains in order to raise awareness and there
were some other activities going around during the tournament to help the government to raise uh
this campaign on the eyes of the public and the eyes of the world so this was also a nice project that
was there um for the tournaments you need leaders so you need a leader or leaders in different
countries in different stadiums therefore the people who were organizing this papua new guinea in
2016 they were taken to jordan to the previous tournament so they could see how to lead a venue
what the venue managers did what the people in the stadium working was doing so this is very
important because the legacy from jordan at that moment served the purpose to train the people
who were having the next tournament so it's also the vision of bringing the people who are
organizing the next event to the previous event in many organizations we have the observers
program this was an observers program so this is very important because they you can tell them you
can send them documents you can explain them 10 000 times but if they have never seen an event
like this and mostly because they don't have football uh they didn't have much football infrastructure
there you cannot really replace experience on site with what they see with papers and documents so
we decided to have our venue managers of the stadiums in papua new guinea in jordan so they
could learn and then they could implement this knowledge in their tournament then in papua new
guinea we also have the the final and the local team actually it was papua new guinea against north
korea in the first match and it was the only team that scored against the future champions so papua
new guinea scored one goal against north korea and north korea was a champion of the tournament
so this is also things that happen in these youth tournaments are very unexpected circumstances so
he gave a plus because the people could see their player scoring against the future champion so that
was also very nice very nice moment and well it was very challenging but with the challenges you
always learn and the team is also very supportive and we had a very good tournament in in papua
new guinea in these talks i'm trying to give you some abilities some measures that are taken by
leaders also by the teams so we can exemplify what is going on now russia was a very special project
for me because um initially i was not going to russia but tournament time they needed some people
to organize the new format of the premature ceremonies the ones who watch it i know they
remember the big flags with the trophy in the middle and then the carpet with the name of the city
so this was a lot of work a lot of preparation and the next picture is the volunteers so we needed 150
volunteers to operate this project opening the flags i think was 30 per flag and then we had 12 for
the carpet and as you know the matches for the world cup and any event need to start on the dot so
it was a big organization mostly because the project was uh released as a first edition in russia and
there were uh many um different things that we needed to deal with for example the volunteers
were distributed in the four tunnels of the stadium so the coordination was very important and also
some of them speak russian some of them don't speak sorry all of them speak russian now everyone
speaks english so i tried to do my briefings mixing a bit the little russian i know with english and this
also connected them to to me and to also the three people from the llc who were working so
languages are always important when you are in an international event even if you know three words
for words or you are fluent anything helps because it breaks the eyes that in no other manner can be
broken so we work together these four people and myself with lucy for this project and it was um so
the coordination was between the giant flags that were coming from the tunnels in the upper side of
the of the picture and then we had the elements of the fifa and the living football flags that come
from the tunnel of the players which is in the middle and we had the carpet that also came from one
of the side tunnels in the lower side so we had to time it we had to agree with infotainment team
what time we are going to go and what time we are going to open the flags together with the music
so it was a very challenging project as well because we had to be creative and this is another thing
that in sport events we need to do so we had to manage and to make sure where are we going to put
the flags in the pitch because they need to look symmetrical so we use chords we use um marks on
the pitch that cannot be seen and need to be removed as as long as far as the flags are gone because
if you leave someone something in the pitch is not good so we had to think in all these different
solutions and it was at the end very nice because when the volunteers were placing everything and
then when the flags were opening with the cheering of the crowd it was just an amazing moment
and i think that for the volunteers was also very nice experience and that's another thing that you
need to take into account that they enjoy what they are doing because it's they do it for free they do
it by heart so they need to be happy you need to keep them happy make sure they have their meals
make sure they have their rest so this is also a very important part and if you don't have volunteers
you cannot really do a workout because they are fundamental and in any other area transportation
or accommodation or competitions without the volunteers you cannot operate any event so we tried
to keep them happy we had long rehearsals we actually had to look for another venue to rehearse
because you cannot rehearse in the stadium because you cannot damage the pitch but everyone was
so disciplined everyone was so into it that they we were in a catering work so they always say we
need to be better than moscow they always compared them to the capital so they were very very
good and they enjoyed it i mean we kept the the full crew of volunteers until the last march so i think
that was a good sign and at the end we i still have contact with some of them so it was very nice
experience that lasted for a lifetime so this is uh how russia was happening in the pre-match
ceremonies then um then after that it was france and that's why i was not really planning to to be in
russia because the tournament was just two months after so but we managed with a lot of timing
organization administration of tasks and people here in france it was very interesting because um it's
another under 20 world cup but apart from that the people were aware of this tournament mostly in
the britannia part in brittany which is in the northwest of france it's a region that has given many
good players to the national team of france in the women's team and i was in different projects such
as the training sites and this was a very good project because it gave me the opportunity to go
around france in road trips like i needed to find 16 very good pitches with good facilities for the
teams such as dressing rooms and distance to their hotels i visited maybe 30 and then for women's
world cup i also did the same project so i visited a bit of more like 50 but this period was very
interesting because it's not the capital it's not paris he's not the big cities but the people there were
very receptive and also understood that even women under 20 um players can be very professional
and the teams are very professional these days i mean more than even 2-3 years ago so this is an
evolution that is going on and this tournament helped to change the perception of the people in in
that region of france because they were not um very aware of of how big is the under 20 women's
world cup in terms of development in terms of professionalism we were asking a lot of requirements
but maybe at the beginning they are a bit uh hesitant to to to follow what we say but then we
explain them we also make them aware that these are professional teams and when the teams
arrived there they realized why we were asking for all those things so this is also about having the
the ability to speak to the people to explain them why you are asking for a certain requirement or
why things need to be like that and it also helped that i speak french so in this uh tournament was
very fundamental because the people in in that region didn't speak much english or they didn't want
to even if they they can i'm sure they can but they feel more comfortable in their own language so
this is also something that helped me to interact better with them and set the the requirements that
we needed for the teams and i think we also had in this tournament the the legacy on the pitches so
pitch management is a full science on itself there is a professional institute in london that gives these
courses for people who take care of the pitches and this knowledge of pitch management was left to
the training ground keepers of each of these training sites that we use it so they know they had
workshops uh with our pitch specialist and this is something that it's for them because it's education
that remains for them for their lifetime so it was a very important project as well to to raise the the
bar and to give the opportunity to the people to to know better how to maintain their pitches for for
their facilities so next one i want to show you a video thank you thank you very much well this was
the the video for the next project as you all know now so i was fortunate enough to be leading the
players for training sites and match operations and co-leading the venue project so i visited the
stadiums maybe five times before the world cup which was very good to make sure that all the
preparations were going according to plan in this tournament we also tried to lead the way on the
pitch preparation we have an amazing pitch management team and the training sites were very well
maintained and they also had the impressions you are in the stadium as you can see in the picture
below so this really gave the teams the opportunity to use the training sites and feel as they were in
the stadium in terms of technical tactics and all the um aspects that need to be taken into a training
so we only used very few uh very little the pictures before the matches because we wanted to the
pitches to be in the best uh state for the matches so the teams were very happy with the training
sites they were there very frequently and this is very important because for us the main asset in the
tournament is to have a good pitch so this was a very good project for this one we also gave my
colleagues from pitch management gave the training to the groundskeepers some months in advance
so they can accordingly be preparing the the fields for the teams when they come and in france there
was also the opportunity for the community training sessions this is that in every town where the
training pitch was located there was also the opportunity for the community to go and see the
players and this is nice for the players and it's nice for the community because they feel that the
workup is happening also in their in their towns in their cities and also gives the a good fan base so
people get interested into it or if they have never watched it that much or they don't they cannot go
to the match at least they can have an idea or a glance when the teams are in there in the training
site so in this workout it was really the intention since the beginning to raise the bar we even were
more people involved from our team internally in this tournament so it was a very good tournament
it was really um also for football for women's football for women in football for women making an
impact in other aspects of uh outside the pitch outside football so this was a very i think strong
milestone for the women and all this worldwide movement that is going on since a couple of years
ago so here are some figures i'm not going to read them all but we reached our goal about having
more than one billion people watching and also the ticketing goal was achieved um we had as well
different from other previous world cups we had one dedicated person to go with the team and
promote the activities that the team were doing so this is uh the team uh media crew and also there
was one person actually sometimes from the country of the team that was with them to do videos
for youtube videos for other social media and to share stories about the players so that people could
get more involved and know more because unfortunately at that time and still we have a room for
improvement is that the players don't have enough exposure but now with the new um formats of
the competitions in uefa and also in other countries with the clubs that they are getting more
exposure on tv to to be known and that people start following them and then they get more engaged
into watching the matches even sometimes uh we ask people uh why don't you come to the to the
world cup or or why don't you watch a match they say no i don't like it i don't like women's football
but then you ask them have you ever watched the match they say no so how can you say that you
don't like it you have never experienced it so i think that's very important that now there is a bit
more opportunity to to watch it and also because the fact that the world cup was in france was very
central as well relatively because you have a good uh timing for the people in america and then a
good timing as well you you can accumulate from asia and oceania and africa as well as the same
time zone almost as in europe so it was a very centralized in terms of timing and that also helped to
boost it but also the whole promotion the whole strategy that was going on around it so here i like
this i'm going to read it so women's work is as a unique opportunity to showcase the universal nature
of football and promote responsible social environmental and economic values in the whole cities
and among all the events stakeholders this event is an opportunity to change people's mentality and
raise awareness i think that we really achieved this we contributed to that and that's why i wanted to
share this with you then we have other events such as the big soccer world cup here we have a
hybrid format we work with another company to make it happen because this uh organization does
all the big soccer matches around the world the whole year but we have the the prime product
which is a world cup and this was more to adapt their way of working with hours and also the split of
task is not always clear so it's something that we also have to work with and the team effort that it
requires because we need their know-how on their daily monthly yearly experience in organized
matches of big soccer all over the world and then our fifa standards so this is a very close
collaboration that we have for for beach soccer i have had the um the chance to work in in futsal in
bitshock women's in men's tournaments so um i like that i have an overview the scale and the scope
that every tournament is um is preparing for for the final tournament then i will go quickly to futsal
so this was challenging because as all uh now there were many events that were postponed
including the olympic games so it also affected our futsal workup which happens only every four
years and is indoors so perfect for kovid no so the postponement gave us a bit more of time to think
about the measures to think on also the governmental and our policies for the players for the teams
to be safe and this was very important because uh we need to develop covet protocols to keep
everyone safe and that everyone also feels safe and knows that there is a procedure a clear
guidelines on what to do if that happens or how to prevent it better so this is a very um full-time
project just to deal with the covet protocol and the covet measures and also because it was hinders
the government was also taking the measures on this and fortunately we could have it because also
some months before you don't know if these events can happen and the new format as well for
some of the a venues and it's normally done in basketball venues so you need to adapt to the food
cell and also the lines for the tv and the media are different so it's a very interesting project and it
was very good to to have it because you think not only on the maintenance of the pitches that in this
case you also need maintenance but there is other aspects that you need to take into account for
example in these indoor venues it's much easier to have lights and to have some more infotainment
with the cube i think it was a very good idea to have them in all the three venues and where this is
where our challenges in the in the futsal world so i will just uh mention briefly uh for costa rica we
are also having different challenges but this tournament was also postponed so it's also taking time
to adjust and we know we don't know how the covet will be on august next year when we have the
tournament so from now we need to prepare all the possible scenarios and also the weather that is
gonna be there and it's really uh every project is a challenge but every project is an opportunity to
learn to lead people to work together to do teamwork so in the last slides i'm just gonna summarize
what uh i've been pointing out sometimes saying it sometimes with examples so if you want to
develop leadership skills if you want to live in sports i think that you need different things for
example you need to know who you are working for you need to know who is your audience for who
you are making all these efforts investing all this time so that's important you need to be open-
minded you need to have diplomacy skills because not not always you can be very direct you need to
it's not more about what you say but more about how you say it so this is very very important if you
want to achieve a compromise or an agreement between between people or to get what you want
so it's very important conflicts there are always discrepancies discrepancies disagreements
misunderstandings so mediation is another ability that you will need in your in your path as a leader
problem solving abilities i mean events is always problem solving stuff mostly when is uh the event
time and recognize what you know how to do and recognize what you don't know so you have
experts that can guide and then that can deliver the work for you sometimes you just need to
coordinate the experts because they know their domain and this is very important that you respect
what they know little flexibility and mostly in these times we don't know how the work will say will
be next year we don't know even tomorrow sometimes things happen overnight so we need to be
aware of that and as ready as possible even if it's not 100 uh possible but we we try our best
teamwork without teamwork it's not possible to organize anything communication is one of the key
elements that is always mentioned and it's always there but it's what lacks more sometimes so it's
very important that everyone who needs the information is aware of what the impact for example
we have different areas such as marketing transport security we go to a stadium security says we
need this and that but maybe they don't see the needs of marketing that are also clashing with them
so it's about having the full picture of how a decision of an area will impact the decision in another
area and how it will be affecting the whole uh tournament or the whole event because sometimes
there's people who are a bit stubborn on what they need but you need to make them to see the big
picture and maybe they want certain thing but might not be implemented fully as they want but
whatever is implemented needs to serve the purpose of the whole event so this is sometimes one of
the major challenges when leading an event that you need to make sure the people are aware that
there is more than their own functional area and then i will go to the next one so the values that i
have observed and i try to follow responsibility accountability everyone has a role so everyone is
expected to deliver what their role demands honesty be open be direct when you need to be direct
be diplomatic when you need to be diplomatic this comes for respect and then empathy they're all
there is always the the fact that you sometimes need to understand the other person so empathy is a
very important ability when you are leading a team patience i think it supplies for for many things
and resilience well it's to to make it happen uh in the best way possible with the best communication
possible and try hard to achieve the the goal try hard to meet the deadline because the lines
particularly in sport events are very very important so i finished with that and then i leave the space
that is remaining the time for the questions feel free to ask anything thank you very much for your
attention i really enjoy it to to deliver this information and i hope it's useful for all of you thank you
mareli thank you very much for for the for the explanation um it seems that we have a shy audience
today because we have um we still have no questions oh let me check yes we have okay we have the
first question coming so left is saying uh when it comes to hiring people to work for tournaments
what are the skills and qualifications candidates should be making sure they have on hand i think
that um there are several and they all depend on the role that you want to perform but in general i
would say if you already have a previous experience in an event either sometimes as a volunteer or
also in other international events mostly continental events like pan-american games or maybe a ufo
final a champions league final that helps always to to get roles if you have never worked in in sports
or you want a role for the first time it's a good opportunity to volunteer because like when you
volunteer try to target the continental or international events which give you more exposure the
other important point is that you speak languages and there is always an asset if you speak only
english try to learn the second one if you already speak two well try a third one but this is always
going to open you the door and also if you have access to sorry to access to webinars access to
people who are doing what you want to do try to meet them to reach them so they can explain you a
bit better in the particular area that you want to to work um yeah i was i was also uh thinking on on
the talking about leadership we can say that there are higher skills and soft skills so can soft skills be
trained i think yes i mean for example as a human means we absorb knowledge i think soft skills
mostly now the trend is to to have a coach and these people are trained to see what you don't see of
yourself so i think that soft skills can also be trained through training of of course but also maybe if
you are working if you're lucky enough maybe your boss also gives you some feedback that you are
lacking something that you are good and what you do but maybe you need to work in a different way
on approaching the people or start the meetings in a different uh way as well so yes i definitely think
that soft skills and people skills some have more than others some are more social some are more
approaching but you can always work on that and it's a personal uh choice to to be better [Music]
pascal uh is asking um what is an advice for someone uh who is organizing an event for the first time
for example hosting a domestic leak final what would be your advice well i think that it depends on
which kind of event but in general also in the internet there are many it's very broad question
because i cannot be very specific but normally you need to what i advise you is to surround yourself
with people who are motivated to do it who you can rely on because whatever the task is uh it will
be delivered because these people have the passion these people maybe have the knowledge as well
and in order to organize a competition you need people that you can trust and i think this is the most
important if you if you put the example of hosting a domestic click final well maybe take into account
who is your target audience which teams are playing when do you want to play if you have the
materials and the pitches available if not if you will source them from a company or if you will need
to hire a transport company which kind of promotion you need to do so it's thinking about the whole
event i also maybe recommend you there is a a very uh short course in the platform of the iuc it's
called at least 365 or 360. i'm sorry it's either one of the other but there they have a sport
management course like crash course you can finish it in one hour one hour and a half and they
really give you like a very good overview on everything that you need to think about i mean i can't
explain you but it could be too long here but it's an option that you can use you just need to
subscribe to sign in and then you the courses are available for everyone constantinos yeah says if you
have skills and uh and uh you have follow a lot of seminars but you have no experience at all um the
sports field is open to give you an opportunity to begin working in the field how does it work no i
think it's good i mean education always helps and it's always good and it's nice that there is a lot of
courses but what really counts is the hands-on so i advise you to get involved get you your hands on
the ground and try to volunteer in the local events that there are in your community if you have the
possibility try to volunteer in bigger events and maybe one or two will give you a very good
understanding of how it works as i mentioned we can always send the comments we can always
explain but if you don't leave it you lack this operational experience that will help you to eventually
get a position or an opportunity to work in a sport organization um malay talking about about uh you
you already mentioned that teamwork is very is very important uh organizing events and managing a
team um so i saw a post i think on linkedin recently and it says it said you can hire the best uh in
every position and let them do the job or hire the cheapest and ten and tell them what they have to
do but um thinking on that i thought okay in events you have a mix of both right so you said already
that volunteers have a very important role in big events uh so what is important to understand when
uh when working with managers in middle positions and with volunteers for example that they are
not even paid how do you have to manage to work with both i think that for volunteers is more
straightforward you need to keep them happy you need to keep them busy volunteers are there
because they want to do things you need also to find the balance between the business and the and
the free time so they also are persons so they need time to relax they need to be uh well-fed they
need to have their schedule so they understand what they are doing they have to be trained
normally this happens some weeks or so months before the event the big events they have special
dates to train the volunteers in general to explain them how the event works and also they have
specific trainings for them when they need to work for example for the media what they need to do
what they need to know they also choose the volunteers according to their their profile and what
they need in the in the different areas maybe i t students help in the it for the setup of the offices or
the accreditation center for example and then for the middle middle positions well it's people who
most likely would like to progress in the organization so if you feel that they are there that they are
reliable you can always give them a good project that they are interested on and that they want to
deliver properly maybe in order to get promoted or to get to the next stage or to work in the next
event so i think that giving some responsibility measuring how much you can give them and
according to what they are able to deliver you assign the next project or the next opportunity okay
okay madeli i think we don't have uh any more questions i don't want to keep you here because i
know that you are a very busy uh busy woman so i just want to thank you very much for your time
and uh good luck for upcoming events thank you very much i was very happy to be here thanks for
the opportunity thank you i always think that this these webinars are very interesting for people
looking to get into the sport industry or even for people already working in that looking for best
practices because when you see a tournament on tv or even when you go to a video it's hard to
realize how much work it takes to do all the preparations to to succeed right exactly it's like when
someone asks me that it's not working sports industry what i do i'm like okay you watch the match
you see the stance but everything that you don't see that's what we do yes yeah exactly it's a nice uh
way to to to say um okay marilyn thank you very much for your time and um yeah thanks everyone
for participating uh as you know you will soon receive a link to the webinar recording and we invite
you to stay connected and follow new sessions as always we'll come back soon with new topics and
you will find all the information in the virtual campus and in our social media channels so take care
and see you soon bye bye thanks marielli thank you bye bye