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The Internationalization of Leading

European Football Clubs in Asian and
US Football Market
Anıl Dinçer

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 Supervisor MRS. SUE BRIDGEWATER

DISSERTATION

ON THE

‘‘The Internationalization of Leading

European Football Clubs in Asian and
US Football Markets’’
1
Comparative Analysis of Strategies Implemented
by Four Different Football Clubs; Barcelona, Paris
Saint Germain, Manchester United and Bayern
Munich

BY
ANIL DINCER
201384658
THE STUDENT
of
SPORTS BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT
POSTGRADUATE DEGREE

12 SEPTEMBER 2019
 Abstract: In the recent years, the football industry has highly been

globalized and football clubs have begun to be transformed into

global corporate companies as creating and implementing

international strategies in overseas territories especially in Asia and

US. Although these markets have already been dominated by

leading European Football Clubs, there are still many lucrative

opportunities for other football clubs. In this paper, top four European

football clubs’ Asia and US market entry modes and strategies;

Barcelona FC, Paris Saint Germain, Manchester United and Bayern

Munich, are deeply and comparatively analysed. Following of given

comparative analysis, recommendations which might be helpful for

the football clubs which have not any global strategy or which are

already in planning step will be explained.

2

Keywords: Football, Football Market, Football Clubs, Global Fans,

Internationalization, Broadcasting, Commercialization, Global

Strategy, Benefit, China, US, Barcelona, PSG, Manchester United,

Bayern Munich

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Globalization in the Football Industry

Globalization is one of the most popular terms of today’s world and its impact has been

constantly increasing around the world with new technological advancements (Wojcik,

2014) World is no longer single place where nations, regions, cultures are connected

to each other. In addition, the actions in distant regions and countries are more

essential than local actions for the companies. (Miller, Lawrence, McKay and Rowe,

2001, p. 131)

Globalization has socially and economically affected most of the industries such as

telecommunication, food & beverage, sports, etc. However, sport industry might be

described as one of the most dynamic fields of globalization. (Giulianotti and

Robertson, 2004, p. 545) Sport industry with many different disciplines, especially

football industry, has considerably been affected by the impact of globalisation in the

recent years. (Mason and Duquette, 2005)

As of today, football is global business in which there are plenty of international player 3

transfers between football clubs from different regions and countries, international

leagues or cups are created such as Premier League Asian Cup and top football events

take place in different countries such as FIFA World Cup. (Beech & Chadwick 2004,

Horne & Manzenreiter 2004) In this paper, we mainly focus on the impact of

globalization on football market and the reaction given by key drivers of football market

such as football associations, football clubs or football fans.

There are many indicators which might help us to understand how football industry has

been globalized as follows; (Dickson and Santos, 2017)

- Broadcasting of football matches in the overseas countries.

- Transformation of digital media including social media in which global

football fans might reach all football related contents regarding their

football clubs
 - The international activities of the football clubs in different promising

regions and countries, for example as newly in Asia and US.

1.1.1. Broadcasting and Digital Media

Sport has been significantly globalized in the last years due as having strong ties with

global media and highly being affected by it. (Falcous and Maguire, 2006) Sports and

media have a close relationship and common interest so they have been benefitted

from each other (Bolotny & Bourg, 2006) While sport is key platform for the media

companies in order to attract the attention of audiences (Grainger and Andrews, 2005);

media elements, in particular broadcasting, are crucial revenue and marketing sources

for the sport companies including football clubs. This mutual relationship has improved

following of the recent technological advancements on media, especially broadcasting

4
and integration of this new technology in the football industry. (Turner, 2007)

Specifically, in terms of sports media, football is widely considered to be most popular

sport and has highest number of audiences worldwide as compared to other sports

including basketball, Formula 1, ice hockey. (Horne & Manzenreiter, 2004) The

globalization of football media has made football related activities achievable in many

regions and countries. The number of broadcasters has increased and many football

related products including football matches, programmes have been distributed to

many regions and countries. (Buraimo, 2007) For example, the world’s most watched

football league’s matches, Premier League, are broadcast to more than 210 regions

with multiple language options such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Norwegian, Turkish etc.

(Dickson and Santos, 2017) (Gratton and Solberg, 2007) In 2005, Champions League

Final between Ac Milan and Liverpool was broadcasted in 233 countries and 1.5 billion

football fans watched this game. (Turner, 2007)

Apart from football broadcasting, there has been recently observed improvements on

internet and social media providing football related content. (Turner, 2007) Global fans

living in different countries around the world can reach their football clubs’ live matches

on many websites on the internet even legally or illegally and with diversified range of

products; television, phones, computers, tablets. (Dickson and Santos, 2017) (Turner,

2007)

Additionally, apart from watching football matches, all football news is available online

for global football fans and they can also reach their football clubs’ social media

platforms including website, twitter, Facebook, Instagram accounts to be informed

about their clubs’ activities in daily basis. (Dickson and Santos, 2017) These social

media interaction channels play a significant role for football clubs in establishing well

relationship with their global fans by giving their global football fans a chance to engage

with their favourite football players, managers, etc. (Randhawa, 2011) For example, 5

Manchester United organized online discussion event between Chinese football fans

and its famous players; Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney on its official Chinese

website. (Richelieu and Desbordes, 2012)

1.1.2. Football Clubs’ Global Transformation

Football industry has always been a business having some opportunities for the

football clubs and it has economically grown more in recent years due to the positive

financial effect of globalization in the football industry. Global markets in the football

industry are more crucial than local markets for the football clubs in many aspects. For

example, as seen on Mr. Hatfield’s paper which was published in 2003, Florentino

Perez who is the President of Real Madrid FC mentioned about the importance of

international markets in terms of its economic benefit as follows;

 ‘‘If you do not have 10% of the Chinese market in a decade, there would

be direct financial consequences in a truly marketplace.’’ (Hatfield,

2003, p.20)

The globalization of the football clubs is rapidly growing trend in the football industry

(Chanavat, 2017) (Richelieu, 2008) so football clubs have been transformed to be well

structured organizations carrying out global practises and exploiting all possible

revenue sources (Dolles and Söderman, 2008) in order to gain competitive advantage

and maximizing their revenue in the global markets. (Ratten, 2011) (Dolles and

Söderman, 2008) For instance, following of Beckham’s transfer from Manchester

United, Real Madrid used this spectacular transfer as an advantage to exploit

merchandising opportunities in Asian market. As a part of Real Madrid’s commercial

strategy, Beckham and his wife went to this market for a week and many

merchandising products of the club including mobile phones, chocolates, beauty 6

products have been sold in Asian market (Dolles and Söderman, 2008) apart from shirt

sales which went from 1 million to 3 million in a week. (Kerr and Gladden, 2008)

1.1.3. Conclusion

To sum up, as wisely described in the book, ‘‘Global Sport Management’’ written by

Schulenkorf and Frawley, globalization is like a genie inside the bottle but outside of

the bottle now and it is hard to put it back to the bottle. (Schulenkorf and Frawley, 2017)

It seems that the impact of globalization on the football clubs will not be ended in next

coming years.

1.2. Research Aims

The aim of this study is to gain insight about the development of globalization in the

foreign football markets, especially in Asia and US and to find out an answer about
how leading European Football Clubs such as Barcelona, Manchester United, etc.

have been undertaking their global strategies and operations in Asian and US football

markets.

1.3. Research Objectives

1.3.1. To investigate increasing impact of globalization in the football market in

the recent years.

1.3.2. To identify the globalization process of European football clubs in Asian

and US football markets with various strategical activities.

1.3.3. To give suggestions for the football clubs which have not had any global

strategy or have not started to implement their global strategy in the foreign

markets.

1.4. Research Questions

1.4.1. How has globalization recently enhanced its effect in the football market? 7

1.4.2. Why have European football clubs been implementing their strategies in

Asian and US football markets and What are their global strategies in these

markets?

1.4.3. What might be recommended for the football clubs which are willing to

create and implement global strategy in the foreign markets?

1.5. Hypothesis

1.5.1. Recent advancements on broadcasting and increase in commercial

activities in an international level are the reasons of rapid globalization of football

industry.

1.5.2. Asian and US football markets have many lucrative opportunities for

football clubs such as new source of revenue, global fan base, etc. so European
 leading football clubs have mostly been targeting Asian and US football markets

by conducting different types of global activities.

1.5.3. There are many successful global attempts made by leading European

football clubs and some of their activities might be taken as an example for the

football clubs which are planning to be globally expanded to foreign football

markets.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Introduction

In terms of management of the football clubs, prior to design and implement the

strategy, it is important to determine club’s primary objective with short and long

planning; in other words, where club hopes to be seen in the future; to be champion,

not to be relegated, to be more profitable or to be globally expanded. (Hamel and

Prahalad,1989, 1990) 8

Football Clubs have started to initiate global strategies, requiring long-term planning

and well organization (Thomsen, 2013), in overseas markets with various reasons

such as gaining competitive advantage, reach out global fan base, generating profit as

much as possible (Dolles and Söderman, 2008), finding out new revenue sources or

just to be financially alive in the competitive football industry.

Some of the football clubs have already succeeded and have been benefitted in the

international markets but there have still been unsuccessful attempts as well.

Therefore, it is so critical for football clubs to determine their global targets with the

selection of appropriate market and strategies in order to achieve long-term success

in the international markets. (Couvelaere and Richelieu, 2005)

2.2. Main Target / Global Fans

Thanks to the revolutionary changes especially on the media and football

broadcasting; the broadcasting rights of the football matches have been successfully

distributed from Europe to many distant regions and countries such as Pacific Asia,

US, Africa etc. (Buraimo, 2008) As being different from the past, football matches have

begun to be approachable on various media devices; tv, pc, smartphone, tablets, other

devices. (Turner, 2007)

Briefly, broadcasting of the live football matches in many overseas countries brings

football clubs financial revenue, at the same time most importantly, this gives them an

opportunity to reach out their potential or current global fans and build new fan base.

(Buraimo, 2008)

The football matches are now accessible in different regions and countries thanks to

the development on football media and broadcasting and the number of global fans is

so high according to the past as Premier League’s global fans base is 1.2 billion and it 9

has been followed by 174 million Chinese football fans. (Ye Xu B.A., 2012) For the

football clubs, as of today, Manchester United Football Club just has 4-5 million global

fans in US and 25-30 million in Asia; almost 50-60% of its total number of its worldwide

supporters which is around 50 million. (Giulianotti and Roberton, 2004) (Turner and

Shilsbury, 2005) (Hollensen, 2004)

For this reason, all these global strategies conducted in overseas football markets by

football clubs mainly focus on global fans who are primary target of the football clubs.

Football clubs’ international strategies should be depended on targeting global football

fans if they want to achieve utmost benefit. (Couvelaere and Richelieu, 2005)

In this respect, the football clubs need to establish well-developed communication

channels with their millions of global fans around the world (Desbordes and Richelieu,

2012). Apart from that it is essential for football clubs to keep their global fans satisfied
(Kufner, 2015). According to Kufner’s suggestion; football clubs should create contact

points to reach out their global football fans with different type of actions such as

sponsored events, fan events, club media events on the social media. (Kufner, 2015)

For example, in terms of social media, Bayern Munich has successfully been growing

digitally by organizing various online fan engagement activities targeting young global

fans. (Pueckler, 2015) The football clubs would gain many different benefits such as

increase in brand awareness, commercial sales, the number of global fans (Herbert,

2013); in case they are succeeded to conduct their international strategy basis on

interacting with their global fans.

Global fans have started to follow all their football clubs’ matches and more importantly,

make contribution to the improvement of their football clubs both financially and

morally. (Kerr and Gladden, 2008) They have been supporting their football clubs in

different ways (Bridgewater, 2007) such as being a member of their football clubs’ 10

communities and representing their football clubs in the overseas markets, purchasing

their football clubs’ commercial products, attending global football tours organized by

their football clubs.

Meanwhile, football clubs have been organizing some well-developed interaction

activities to reach out their global fans or attract other global football fans’ attention.

These activities are changing football club to football club but the most common ones

are organization of pre-season tours in the global markets, having agreement with

global partners or sponsors to reach global football fans more and in an easy way (Kerr

and Galdden, 2008), providing tv service for global football fans in their own language

(Holmes et al., 2003) or assigning global ambassadors who are well known local

characters in the global football markets. (Larmer, 2005) (Ludden, 2005)

In the interaction process between two of them, global fans would like to see their

football clubs as being close to them even their football clubs play their matches in

different regions or countries. (Bridgewater, 2007) For the football clubs, fundamental

part of their global strategy should be directly targeting global football fans so

interaction channels should be kept as being open and these channels should be

improved to be close to global football fans mentally and physically. (Randhawa, 2011)

2.3. Global Football Markets

The football industry has reached its maturity phase especially in European market late

1990s so there needed to be emergence of new global markets. (Nys, 1999) The main

drivers of the football market such as football clubs, associations and media companies

have decided to revive this saturated and stable business and make it profitable again

by reaching out new populations in new territories (Desbordes, 2017) For this reason,

many European football clubs have tried to enter new football markets, especially in 11

Asia and U.S., to globally build their brands, increase their revenue sources and

overcome the problems they confronted in saturated European football market.

(Parganas, Anagnostopoulos and Chadwick, 2015) Although there is high level of

uncertainty for the football clubs in the foreign football markets, global approach would

bring them many benefits as given above. (Bridgewater, 1995)

First question should be responded is how to select best football market for football

clubs’ globalization strategy. According to Johanson and Vahlne’s view, selection

process of the place where global practises takes place is mainly depend on two

factors; geographical factor / distance and commitment of global customers in related

place. (Johanson & Vahlne, 1977) However, abovementioned factors might be

diversified. For example, as being different from above, in accordance with Younghan

Cho’s (2013) opinion, the terms including high population, economic development,
consumer purchasing power have played an important role on football clubs’ decision

to be globally expanded to Chinese market. (Younghan Cho, 2013) Particularly, high

population in the mega markets is main motivation for football clubs to expand their

operations to these markets. (Kotler, 1986)

Briefly, in terms of globalization in the foreign football markets, two markets, Asia and

U.S, are found to be more attractive for the European football clubs with various

reasons given below and as of today, there are many European football clubs have

been undertaking their global strategies in these territories. In this research paper,

there needs to be specifically emphasized on Asian football market which is most

growing football market in the last years as explained below.

2.3.1. Analysis of Asian Football Market

2.3.1.1. Reasons
12
Following of financial collapse of European football economy in 2001, Asian countries’

football markets have appeared to be more attractive for European football clubs due

to Asian countries’ vibrant economy as constantly growing (Bodet and Chanavat, 2009)

and financial opportunities were realized by European football clubs at the same time.

(Horne and Manzenreiter, 2004) For this reason, European football clubs have decided

to organize their global activities such as tours, merchandising, social media etc. in

Asian countries as being mostly in China. (Hamil and Chadwick, 2010)

Apart from financial crisis in the European football, there were many other reasons

about why European clubs have specifically selected Asian countries to implement

their global strategies as follows; (Desbordes, 2007)

▪ The region with high populated countries

▪ High potential for commercial development:

 ▪ High level of purchasing power of football fans:

▪ Passionate football fans

▪ Football fans having high tendency for consumption of merchandising

and media

Firstly, Asian region includes populated countries including China with 1.4 billion

inhabitants as one third of the world population, India with 1.2 billion (Bloom, 2011),

Indonesia 255 million (Elias and Noone, 2011); and more importantly, there is potential

global football fan base for European football clubs such as 110 million football fans

just in China. (Richelieu and Desbordes, 2012) After the organization of mega football

events in this region such as 2002 World Cup in Japan & South Korea, local people’s

attention and interest to football has significantly increased. (Dolles and Söderman,

2008) The hosting of the 2002 World Cup by Japan and South Korea is milestone for

the globalization of Asian football market because many football teams appeared in 13

the market, even in an international level and this led to the boost of international

football brands’ image in the Asian region. (Du Jiang, 2004) These events also showed

us how much potential this market has because many local fans supported other

national teams and dressed their shirts following of elimination of Chinese national

team. (Bridgewater, 2007)

Especially young generation living in Asian countries have high awareness and interest

towards football and they have been following European football leagues’ matches,

particularly Premier League. (Bridgewater, 2007) For example, in 2004, Premier

League was most popular league in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and China where

83% of local football audiences preferred to watch Premier League matches instead of

Chinese league matches. (Turner, 2007)

In accordance with the findings of the survey which was done by Susan Bridgewater,

Mike Bastin and Bihu Wu on behalf of English Football Association to understand the

level of interest of Chinese local people towards international and local football;

53.61% of the respondents described themselves as having strong interest to watch

international football matches. As opposed to this finding, just %15.02 described

themselves as strongly following local football matches. These findings also might help

us to understand how much passionate Chinese local football fans are to watch

European football clubs’ matches and support European football clubs.

Lastly, economic power has shifted from west to east and Asian countries have

reached to economic magnitude and wealth. Their football markets have positively

been affected from their financial growth. (Connell, 2017) As previously explained by

Desbordes (2007), Asian countries are emergent countries with high potential of

commercial development so European football clubs might exploit new commercial 14

opportunities in Asian countries. (Desbordes, 2007)

2.3.1.2. Government Policy

In addition to given above, globalization of the football has been welcomed by Asian

countries’ governments. Asian countries’ governmental policies are based on

improving football in their region and promoting their countries’ image and prestige by

hosting international mega events and welcoming to European football clubs’ global

activities. (Connell, 2017) For this reason, many Asian countries have been willing to

host mega football events such as the Beijing Olympic Games in China (Blanchard &

Lu, 2012; Zheng, 2018; Yang, 2019), 2002 World Cup in Japan & South Korea as being

first time in Asian region and 2022 World Cup which will be in Qatar. (Dorsey, 2016)

There needs to be a lot more emphasis on Chinese governments approach towards

globalization of the football in their country. Chinese government has found its first
professional football league in 1994 and has decided to make a reform in the football

industry by reducing entry of market forces. (Jones, 2004) Then revolutionary changes

in Chinese football has been made such as broadcasting of European football matches

in different cities of China (Yiyong, 2014), sponsorship agreements between Chinese

football league and European global brands, creation and ownership of professional

football clubs in China (Simons, 2008) (Parganas, Anagnostopoulos and Chadwick,

2015), flow of Chinese football players to European clubs (Lanfranchi and Taylor,

2001; Simons, 2008), transfer of big European football stars by Chinese football clubs

(Jones, 2004), building football premises including 20.000 training centre, 70.000

pitches, 20.000 schools in China. (Liu, Mao & Zha, 2016)

To improve the quality of Chinese football and make Chinese football market attractive

global place for different level of European football clubs, Chinese President Xi Jinping

has had a strategy to cooperatively work with European countries and European 15

football clubs and gain mutual benefit at the end. (Toktomushev, 2016) This might be

an answer of how Chinese football market has rapidly changed and became a centre

of globalization and capitalization of football industry.

2.3.1.3. Conclusion

Consequently, Asian football market has high potential with many lucrative

opportunities for European football clubs such as accessing high number of football

fans (Yu, 2003), being benefitted from numerous economic sources like great sales of

merchandises, etc. (Bridgewater, Bastin and Wu., 2007)

However, market entry to this market should be well planned by European football

clubs and in the first step, they should build strong positive brand which would allow

them to exist for a long time among Asian football fans in the market. (Bridgewater,

Bastin and Wu., 2007) Therefore, European football clubs should shape and
implement their global strategies based on enhancing their club profile including brand

recognition and positive image in the market (Kerr and Gladden, 2008) because most

of the Asian football fans support football clubs having high level of brand awareness

or having globally recognizable players in their squad. (Bodet and Chanavat, 2009)

2.4. Diversified Activities of the Football Clubs in the Global Football Markets

European football clubs have been developing different type of initiatives to reach their

potential global fans and establish themselves in Asian and US football markets.

(Chadwick, 2015)

Organization of Football Matches: There are many theories explaining an

international expansion of football clubs. (Akhter and Machado, 2014) According to the

research-based theory explained by Barney, companies decide to implement global

strategies if they have resources which help them to add value to foreign market. 16

(Barney, 1991) For example, football schools set up by Manchester United in China

have added value to the development of Chinese football or pre-season tours

organized by European football clubs have made contribution to the increase in interest

of global football fans towards football. In addition to these, physical distance and

cultural difference between local and foreign football markets are so important so these

need to be carefully considered prior to initiate any global strategy. (Evans and

Mavondo, 2002) Within the abovementioned reasons, football clubs must know that

they should have enough resources to add value in foreign markets and they should

physically be in these markets during their international expansion processes in order

to close abovementioned gap.

One of the ways of being close to these overseas markets is to organize football

matches in these regions as how Formula 1 has been organizing its most of races
outside of Europe. (Gezici and Er, 2014) Formula 1’s two international expansion

strategies are mainly based on recruiting F1 drivers from different nationalities and

scheduling F1 races in different regions and countries. (Jensen, Cobbs and Groza,

2014) F1 is not only one internationally expanded sport, tennis has also expanded itself

to global markets along with exhibition of plenty of tennis matches and tournaments in

China, India, Brazil.

For the football industry, these types of football matches might be organized by football

clubs with their own effort or jointly with their National Football Associations. For

instance, in 2008, Premier League announced its global project called as ‘‘39 th Game’’

in which Premier League football clubs would play game against each other in

overseas countries and Premier League would receive money from the cities which

are willing to host these matches. (Dickson and Santos, 2017) Although these extra

matches were going to be scheduled as separated from Premier League’s regular 17

season fixture; FIFA and other football associations harshly criticized this project and

Premier League finally decided to suspend this project after receiving negative reaction

from local fans of Premier League clubs. (Rookwood and Chan, 2011, pg. 906) Despite

unsuccessful attempt of Premier League in 2008, Premier League Asian Cup matches

have still been organized in Asian countries since 2003. (Rookwood and Chan, 2011

– The 39th Game) Addition to Premier League’s global practises, most of the football

clubs from Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga have still been organizing football

matches mostly in Asia and US.

Promotional (Pre-season) Tours: These pre-season tour activities include but not

limited to match organizations in foreign football markets as given above. The main

purpose of European football clubs to organize overseas tour activities is to increase

their brand reputation in foreign markets and exploit all business opportunities of the
market such as enhancing sales of merchandise. (Pueckler, 2015) Besides including

friendly matches and being a part of global tournaments, these tour activities should

be enriched with interaction activities which would give football clubs a chance to

engage with their potential football fans such as fan engagement activities including

signing autographs and taking photographs with team players. (Bridgewater, 2010)

Gradually, many European clubs have begun to schedule summer preparation tours

to Asian countries, mostly to China in order to engage with global football fans and get

commercial benefits in these markets. To illustrate, prominent football club of German

football, Bayern Munich, has already made various summer tours to this region.

(Connell, 2017) Its biggest rival in the global football market, Manchester United, also

visited different Asian countries such as Australia and China in 1999; Malaysia,

Singapore and Thailand in 2001; Hong Kong, China and Tokyo in 2005. (Gratton and

Solberg, 2007) As compared to other European leagues’ clubs, Premier League 18

football clubs have been actively involved in these types of tours. For example, all

Premier League clubs travelled to any Asian country in the summer of 2009 and played

at least one friendly match. (Rookwood and Chan, 2011)

Transfer of Big Stars: As mentioned above, the players having high reputation in the

global football markets has a great impact on global fans’ preference of which

European club they will support. (Mortimer 2004) Besides their sportive contribution on

the pitch, modern stars might bring commercial benefit and fan base to their clubs in

the global markets. For example, following of David Beckham’s transfer, Real Madrid

shirt sales went up 1 million to 3 million and more interestingly, 5 million Asian fans

have suddenly shifted from Manchester United to Real Madrid in one day. (Kerr and

Gladden, 2008) However, it is so risky for European football clubs to develop their

brands around star players’ popularity in foreign markets because club’s positive image
would be negatively affected in the market whenever star player leaves from the club.

(Bodet and Chanavat, 2008)

Establishment of Football Academies: The aim of establishment of football

academies in the overseas markets is to make contribution to the development of

football in these markets. (Rookwood and Chan, 2011) This approach of the European

clubs would be appreciated by local football fans and positively increase the club profile

and brand in the foreign market. (Rookwood and Chan, 2011) As an example, this

strategy has differently been followed by European football clubs such as that there

has been cooperation between Real Madrid and local club, Guangzhou Evergrande,

while Barcelona has set up its own academy in Hainan. (Connell, 2017) For Premier

League Football Clubs; Manchester United prefers to invest its money to form its own

international schools in different regions of Asia. However, rather than investment,

Chelsea Football Club has partnership system with local football clubs and support 19

their own football academies and Liverpool Football Club has been giving franchising

to football related person or company to establish football academies on behalf of

Liverpool Football Club in the overseas football markets. (Duerden, 2016)

Regional Partnership: Regional partnership strategy is mainly based on having

cooperation with companies which are well known in the local markets and being

mutually benefitted as a result of this cooperation. (Dolles and Söderman, 2008) In

other definition, according to Chanavat (2017), this partnership is selling of the club’s

image right to the company operating in the global territory in favour of the club’s global

expansion strategy. (Chanavat, 2017) There are many successful examples in league

or club level such as the cooperation between Bundesliga and Baidu which is Chinese

largest search engine with 300 million active users or between Manchester United and
its premium partners; JVC and Budweiser which assists the club in different regions,

in Asia and US respectively. (Connell, 2017)

For the Everton Football Club, the deal with Thai Beverage company is essential step

for its global planning. While Everton has been benefitted by promoting its brand in

Thai football market, at the same time, as appearance of Chang Beer logo on Everton

team shirt, the company has been receiving international brand recognition in the

countries where Premier League has been broadcasted. (Kerr and Gladden, 2008)

It must be noted that some of regional partnership agreements include the

management of football club’s merchandising activities such as selling club’s products

on partner company’s website as successfully done between Bayern Munich and

Alibaba Group. (Dickson and Santos, 2017)

Global Sponsorship (Strategic Alliances): Chajet (1997) points out that European
20
football clubs have realized the increasing role of having sponsorship with big global

brands to enter foreign markets. (Chajet, 1997) (Gratton and Solberg, 2007) Following

of having deal with global corporate sponsors, European football clubs would have a

chance to increase their clubs’ profile and recognition across sponsors’ globally known

titles such as Vodafone, Siemens, etc. (Dolphin, 2003)

For example, in 2007, Manchester United has entered sponsorship deal which was 28

million dollars yearly with American International Group (AIG). The main reason of AIG

to be a sponsor for Manchester United rather than any other clubs is this football club’s

international ambition stated by AIG’s representatives as ‘‘They are not buying UK;

they are buying Asia’’. (Smith, Alex. 2007) AIG is not the only one premium sponsor to

help Manchester United to globally grow, NIKE also is the company managing

Manchester United’s global operation including leveraging its brand in overseas

markets. As might be understood, Manchester United’s global strategy is highly

depended on creating global sponsorship alliances worldwide and get mutual benefit.

(Dolles and Söderman, 2008)

Following of successful global sponsorships attempts done by Manchester United, its

rival Chelsea Football Club has followed same way as having sponsorship agreement

with South Korean global brand, Samsung in 2005. (Bradley, 2005) Then Former CEO

of Chelsea Football Club, Peter Kenyon expressed his club’s ambition to globally grow

and to be prestigious in the foreign markets with the slogan of ‘‘Turn the World Blue’’.

(Huggins, 2005)

Merchandising Activities: Merchandising activities include all type of sales regarding

sales of licensed apparel and other items with club’s name and logo. (Ferrand and

Pages, 1999) (Gladden et al., 1998) As a vital part of their global strategies, football

clubs have been trying to develop their commercial network in the foreign football

markets and increase their sales activities all over the world. (Bowen, Baker and 21

Powell, 2015). There are many benefits of undertaking of global merchandising

activities such as increase in brand recognition, generating more revenue and

strengthening the relationship between football clubs and global fans.

Obviously, brand reputation and good image has positive impact on merchandising

activities such as increase in sales. (Kerr and Gladden, 2008) Meanwhile,

merchandising activities increase club’s brand awareness in the foreign markets even

it takes long time, because global fans have an ambition to wear their clubs’ apparels

and promote their clubs’ names in their countries. (Gladden and Milne, 1998)

In terms of financial benefit, global fans do not only watch their football clubs’ matches

and also contribute to financial development of their clubs by purchasing their clubs’

products. If football clubs’ merchandising activities are succeeded, this would give

football clubs a chance to generate more revenue. (Meneefe and Casper, 2011)
Global fans might be described as potential long-term consumers of their football clubs.

(Couvelaere & Richelieu, 2005) Global fans purchasing their clubs’ merchandising

products feel themselves as being more passionate and to be closer to their football

clubs even they are physically distant from their clubs. (Hedlund, 2014) Obviously,

merchandising activities of the football clubs is a tool to strengthen the relationship

between football clubs and their global fans

In this regard, European football clubs have begun to structure their global strategies

depending on merchandising activities. Merchandising activities of European football

clubs have differently been managed such as retail stores opened by Manchester

United in Macau and Singapore (Burton, 2004), online stores in local language

launched by Chelsea Football Club (Rowe and Gilmour, 2010) and usage of local e-

commerce partner’s online platforms explained below.

As a part of merchandising activities, there are many examples of collaborations 22

between clubs or associations and local e-commerce companies operating as a

subsidiary of football clubs in foreign markets such as Jabong in India and Alibaba in

China. For instance, Bayern Munich as being pioneer of having active collaboration in

the foreign markets regarding e-commerce has an agreement with Alibaba Group

which is the biggest e-commerce service in China and provide service of selling Bayern

Munich’s merchandising products on its giant online platform with 550 million online

users. (Dickson and Santos, 2017) In another example, Brazilian football club Sao

Paulo was in cooperation with Warner Bros for three years between 2007 and 2010

and as a consequence of this cooperation, football clubs merchandising products have

been sold in Warner Bros stores located in different regions and countries outside of

Brazil. (Schulenkorf and Frawley, 2017)

Providing Extended Range of Products: Manchester United has been successfully

pursuing this strategy to exploit various lucrative opportunities by using its strong brand

name on different types of products and services. (Aaker, 1991) Some of them are

subscription television service (Homes et al., 2003), Red Café Restaurants, insurance,

mortgage and credit card. (Turner, 2005) This strategy helps club to increase its brand

awareness in the foreign markets.

Internet / Web Service: As mentioned in the section of global football fans, global

football fans do not want to be isolated from their football clubs, even there is vast

distance among them, so they expect their football clubs to engage with them and want

to be kept updated about their clubs’ news. (Richelieu and Desbordes, 2012) (Kufner,

2015) Therefore, internet and social media have turned to be an environment where

the football clubs have an opportunity to nurture their global fans’ passion and increase

brand awareness by corresponding their expectation with engaged and informative 23

activities. In the last years, European football clubs have paid special attention on their

social media channels and activities and all of them have been globalized such as

Bayern Munich’s official website with various language options; English, Chinese,

Japanese, etc. (Richelieu and Desbordes, 2012)

Members or Supporters Clubs: These types of clubs are worldwide communities

which act as a representative of their clubs in their region and help their clubs to expand

their clubs’ brand in the foreign markets. (Gratton and Solberg, 2007) Bayern Munich

is a right example for this strategy with its 2.123 supporters’ clubs and more than

136.000 members worldwide which is more than any US clubs’ members. (Gratton and

Solberg, 2007)

In the US, the supporters clubs of Scottish Football Clubs such as Glasgow Rangers

with 42 communities (NARSA) and Celtic with 76 communities (NAFCSG) have been
active for a long time. These supporters’ clubs are designed to be social clubs including

activities of watching match and have been distributed across different cities of US.

(Giulianotti and Robertson, 2004) To illustrate, more than 3000 supporters’ clubs’

members attended to Celtic’s annual gathering event in Las Vegas. (Giulianotti and

Robertson, 2004)

CSR Activities: These activities are new trend in the football business and most of

football clubs launch social initiatives at a fast pace. (Babiak and Wolfe, 2009) From

the global perspective, in order to increase brand awareness of the club in the foreign

markets, clubs should be strongly involved in social awareness projects with their

communities or foundations to find out solution for the problems in the overseas

regions and countries. (Richelieu and Desbordes, 2012)

2.5. Case Studies

2.5.1. Intro 24

In this section, the existing international strategies which have been pursued in Asian

and US football markets by four different leading European football clubs; Barcelona

(Ginesta, Eugenio, Bonet and Ferrer, 2018), Paris Saint Germain (Chanavat and

Desbordes, 2017), Manchester United (Wagg, 2010) (Hill, 2006) (Andrews, 2004),

Bayern Munich (Taylor, 2017) (Baena, 2017) are to be shown on the table and

explained as given below. Eventually, all information will be evaluated with

comparative analysis of all these four cases.

Barcelona FC Paris Saint Germain Manchester United Bayern Munich

(US) (Asia) (Asia and US) (Asia and US)
Summer Tour Being multisport Theatre of Dreams Summer Tour
brand in Asian region
Sponsorship with Recruiting icon and Collaboration with Opening office
UNICEF - CSR international players New York Yankees in
US
 Partnership and Joining to Chinese Sponsorship with Collaboration with
Franchising with social media global brands local clubs
MLS platforms
Worldwide global Regional partnership Partnership with Setting up football
sponsorship and in Indonesia local brands schools
partnership
agreements
Launching first Local partnership Providing diversified E-Commerce
official office with Indian Football services and
League - CSR products
Social activities for Organizing winter Social Media
US media attraction tour and introducing Activities
new transfers in
Qatar
Invest in women’s CSR Activities
soccer

2.5.2. Case Studies

2.5.2.1. Barcelona Football Club

Introduction
25
Barcelona Football Club’s motto is ‘‘mes queue un club’’ in other words, ‘‘more than a

club’’ and it means the reflection of Catalan values and tradition by the club in the

football industry. (Ranachan, 2008) (Casals, 2011) However, according to many

academicians, this club has been transformed from being a club to multinational

company and this slogan is associated with the club’s global purpose. (Ginesta,

Eugenio, Bonet and Ferrer, 2018) For instance, according to Ricardo Zuniga,

Barcelona FC is a global multi million business and its slogan is directly linked to this

club’s powerful global brand. (Zuniga, 2016) These academicians cannot be

considered as being wrong because the former president of Barcelona FC, Joan

Laporta who was elected in 2003 (Shobe, 2006) precisely declared his intention to

make Barcelona FC global brand as saying ‘‘Barça is more than a club, not only on the

level of Catalonia but also in the rest of the world’’.

Barcelona FC has been in globalization process since Joan Laporta (Shobe, 2006)

who has decided to expand his club’s brand to overseas football markets as how had

been done by Manchester United Soccer Club in late 1990s. (Ginesta, 2017) This

global expansion strategy of the club in foreign football markets has continued to be

executed by other presidents as well; Sandro Rosell in 2010 and Josep Maria

Bartomeu in 2014. As of today, the club has already been on five continents and has

actively been conducting and developing its strategic plan both in Asian and US soccer

markets. (Mascaro, 2005)

This club’s main goal is to have sustainable success on the pitch and balance sheet

with rational projects and at the same time, to be a leader of soccer world by

strengthening its brand in the global football markets. (Ginesta, Eugenio, Bonet and

Ferrer, 2018) The secret of this club to have a strong global brand is having strategy

of keeping balance between social and commercial activities and transmitting club’s 26

values to overseas soccer markets although its main objective is to get utmost

commercial benefit. (Castells, 2008) (Ginesta, Eugenio, Bonet and Ferrer, 2018)

International Market

Barcelona FC has realized the growth of American soccer industry and then decided

to implement its global strategy in this market in 2003. The club’s primary object was

to expand its business to this promising soccer market, to gain more supporters across

the Atlantic and to capture financial opportunities. (Zuniga, 2016)

Market Entry and Strategies

Summer Tours: In the first place, Barcelona FC firstly appeared in US soccer market

(Nauright, 2014) in August of 2003 through pre-season tour which is two years earlier

than arrival of its biggest rival, Real Madrid to US market (Ginesta, 2011) and also two
years earlier than Barcelona FC organized its first summer tour to Asia (Shobe, 2006)

including China, Korea and Japan where the club generated significant revenue. In this

summer tour, Barcelona FC played three friendly matches against AC Milan, Juventus

and Manchester United. Although this global expansion strategy had been undertaken

by big European soccer clubs like Manchester United, this was the first time for FC

Barcelona to attend pre-season tour in any of foreign soccer markets. (Shobe, 2006)

Sponsorship with UNICEF: Following of this strategy, in 2006, Barcelona FC and The

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) entered sponsorship agreement regarding

first team’s jersey. (Kolyperas, 2012) In this case, as being different from other club’s

sponsorship strategies, the club has agreed to donate two million euros each year to

this charity company in order to use UNICEF logo on the club’s all commercial

products. (Shobe, 2006) The club preferred this sponsorship in which the club needs

to pay for sponsor rather than generating revenue from big corporate sponsors 27

because the club had a strategy to manage global CSR activities with the help of this

charity and show global soccer markets that as being one of club’s corporate values,

Barcelona FC gives importance to social commitment projects around the world as

much as its commercial activities. (Bell, 2006)

Strategic Partnership with MLS and Franchising Attempt: Then, the club had a

plan to consolidate its position in this market so there was an attempt of the club to set

up partnership with MLS and get ownership of MLS franchise in some regions and

cities of US. (Ginesta, 2011) In this respect, the partnership agreement was signed

between Barcelona FC and MLS in May 2008 and this strategical partnership included

the organization of six soccer matches around US between 2009 and 2013. (Ginesta,

Eugenio, Bonet and Ferrer, 2018) Apart from that in 15 October 2018, Barcelona FC

and one Bolivian Investment Group made an offer MLS to get the ownership of MLS
franchise in Miami, but this strategy ended up in failure because of US recession in

2009. (Ibid)

Regional Partnership and Sponsorship: Along with these activities the club has tried

to attract the attention of US companies which are future global sponsors and partners

of the club in the US market. (Ginesta, Eugenio, Bonet and Ferrer, 2018) It must be

noted that although the club’s main objective was to create and implement its global

strategy mainly in US market, its strategy of seeking new regional partners which would

help the club to grow in their local markets was not limited to US regional partners.

(Ibid) Diversification of global partners and sponsors spread all over different

geographical territories is the key factor to achieve global success. (Chen & Hu, 2002)

Some of the club’s partners and sponsors are worth to mention such as Qatar Airways

which is first commercial sponsor of the club’s team shirts (Ginesta and San Eugenio,

2014), Rakuten which is Japanese online sales company and the club’s global sponsor 28

and partner, Chang which is Thai beverage company and regional sponsor of the club

in Thailand.
 Figure 1: Presence of FC Barcelona around the world in 2016 with its football schools,
funding projects, sponsors, commercial offices and millions of fans.
Global football in the US market. The internationalization of FC Barcelona and its
media coverage - Xavier Ginesta, Jordi de San Eugenio, Pau Bonet & Martí, 2018.

Launching Official Office: Furthermore, as a part of the club’s ambition to get closer 29

to US potential sponsors and partners and as well as soccer fans, on 6 September

2016, Barcelona FC announced to open its new office in New York in which club’s

commercial activities still have been managed. (Zuniga, 2016) The commercial office

launched in Hong Kong to search for regional partners and sponsors in 2013 was taken

as an example because it immediately brought financial benefit for the club at the end

of 2013. Barcelona FC signed a sponsorship agreement which is worth 1.3 million

euros with Sunning Company and thanks to this deal, the club could earn more than

how much it invested for the office in Hong Kong. (Ginesta, Eugenio, Bonet and Ferrer,

2018)

Initiating Social Activities: Moreover, the strategy of opening office in US has also

been supported by many simultaneous social activities to show interest and ambition

of the club to US soccer market and to be seen on the media. (Ginesta, Eugenio, Bonet
and Ferrer, 2018) For example, during the opening day of the office, the club’s

foundation project, FutbolNet with the aim of increasing soccer participation and

adopting club’s values to related soccer markets was introduced to US public, 21 top

level US soccer clubs’ representatives were invited for a lunch and the reception was

organized in the club’s new office to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the partnership

between the club and UNICEF. (Ibid) As had been planned, the club achieved great

success to attract US media interest as 65.8% of the news were published by US

media channels (Ibid)

Investment in Women’s Soccer: For teenage girls, women’s soccer is the second

most watched sport in US and more interestingly, FIFA Women’s World Cup Final in

2015 was watched by 28 million audiences which is more than the last game of NBA

Final which had almost 23 million viewers at the same season. (Ginesta, Eugenio,

Bonet and Ferrer, 2018) Additionally, this market has not been occupied by any 30

European football clubs, especially Barcelona FC’s biggest rival Real Madrid which

has not had any women soccer team both in Spain and US. (Brand Finance, 2019)

Therefore, Barcelona FC had a great chance to exploit this huge opportunity in the US

women’s soccer market. In this respect, Barcelona FC had an interest to obtain

franchise in US Women’s Soccer League and the club has expressed its interest on

the US media. (Ginesta, Eugenio, Bonet and Ferrer, 2018) As a result of this approach,

the club’s interest has been announced by US media companies as FC Barcelona

contributes to the development of football in US Soccer and US soccer lovers’

approach to the club has positively changed. (Ibid)

Conclusion

Despite being firstly appeared in US soccer market during pre-season tour in 2003

(Nauright, 2014), the club made its most important global attempt in US market by
launching its official office in 2016. The club has also showed us that implementing

CSR activities and social events in the US soccer market is as much as important

launching official office because these types of activities attract local media’s attention

and local media plays an important role for club to enhance its recognition in the target

market. Lastly, it was a clever idea for the club to enter into long-term partnership with

target market’s most powerful football-related governing body such as MLS in US, in

order to consolidate the club’s position and increase brand awareness in the target

market.

2.5.2.2. Paris Saint Germain Football Club

Introduction

The globalization of the Paris Saint Germain FC (PSG) has begun following of

acquisition of the club by Qatar Sports Investment (QSI) in June 2011 because of

Qatar’s national plan to globally strengthen its brand and enhance its prestige with 31

sport investments. (Chanavat and Desbordes, 2014) (De Bosscher et al. 2008)

(Brannagan and Giulianotti, 2018) The primary objective of Qatari investors was to

transform this club to be most powerful and recognized global football brand around

the world. (Champagne, 2012) (Camy, 2014) For this reason, the club has been in

renovation phases as given below; reorganization of the club such as being multisport

company, reconstruction of the brand such as recruiting reputable players and

diversification of growth drivers including having strategic partnership alliances in

different territories. (Chanavat, 2017)

 Figure 2: The renovation phases of PSG on the way of being global brand
French football, foreign investors: global sports as country branding - Nicolas
Chanavat, 2017.
32

Although PSG is still young in the European football market and it has newly entered

to global football market in comparison with other big European football clubs which

are analysed in this paper; Manchester United, Barcelona FC and Bayern Munich; the

club has achieved 5th place on the list of Deloitte, ‘‘Most powerful football clubs in

2015’’ just 2 years later than the club was owned by QSI. (Deloitte, 2015)

In accordance with Kerr and Gladden (2008), Chanavat and Bodet (2009) and

Richelieu (2011), two types of determinants as an internal and external have played a

significant role about rapid growth of the club in the global era as shown below and

explained detailed in the section of market entry and strategies.

 Figure 3: Analysis of the determinants of success in the internationalization of PSG
Towards a Globalization of the Brand Paris Saint-Germain – Nicolas Chanavat and
Michel Desbordes, 2017.

International Market 33

PSG is mainly focused on Asian football markets because this region offers economic

development prospect and these countries are most appropriate ones for clubs to find

lucrative sponsorship or partnership deals in local and global level. (Chanavat and

Desbordes, 2017) Apart from these, the club might reach out large number of

populations to create fan base and implement its merchandising activities. Therefore,

the club has currently been in China, Indonesia, Qatar and India by undertaking its

global activities. (Ibid)

Market Entry and Strategies

Evaluation into Multisport Brand: The brand of the organization is created by its own

effort according to Keller and Lehmann (2006) and this view is also supported by Jones

(2005) and Ferrand and Pages (1999). In this respect, PSG’s initial globalization
attempt was to be a multisport global brand existing in new territories with new sports.

(Lehmann, 2006) (Jones, 2005) (Pages, 1999) The club intended to build sport entity

competing in different type of sports as being inspired by the model of Barcelona FC,

so the club has invested considerable amount of money to acquire clubs in handball,

women’s football and eSports respectively. (Chanavat, 2009) (Chanavat and

Desbordes, 2014) For instance, in terms of eSports, this is undeniable reality that it is

rapidly growing phenomenon and has already had 385 million global audience, mostly

from Asian region. (Newzoo, 2017) PSG has realized this sport’s global potential and

then decided to be actively involved in this sport by acquiring its own official team to

enhance its global brand in the Asian markets along with strengthening its relationship

with its current global fans and attracting the attention of other global fans. (Chanavat

and Desbordes, 2017)

Recruiting International and Icon Players: Secondly, PSG has followed a different 34

method of player recruitment for increasing the global sale of merchandising products

and attracting global media attention (Chanavat, 2009) as transferring international

players from different countries who are most admired players in their own nations

such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Reiche, 2014) or iconic and most reputable names in the

global football markets such as David Beckham. (Chadwick and Burton, 2008) The

national diversity in the squad is certainly an important for the development of the club’s

brand in each football market because all players from different geographic areas might

be accepted as the club’s ambassador or in other saying, marketing tool to develop

close relationship with the global fans in their countries. (Hill and Vincent, 2006)

Another recruitment model based on transferring of iconic players would bring media

exposure, increase brand awareness, enhance the number of global fans and provide

marketing advantage to the club in the global markets, especially in Asian countries in
which there is a population highly attracted by the transfer of well-known global players.

(Chanavat and Desbordes, 2017) For example, David Beckham was transferred by the

club in January 2013 as an essential part of club’s international expansion strategy.

He was still so popular in Asian market although he was 37 years old and the club

exploited its reputable brand name to get marketing advantage in the Asian market.

(Chadwick and Burton, 2008) (Yu, 2005) (Parmentier, 2010) More than 400.000 club

shirts have been sold at the end of 2013 and the club had 60% increase according to

previous season. (Vincent et al, 2006) (Yu, 2005) This player recruitment method was

inspired by Real Madrid FC which recruited Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo, Beckham, etc.

between 2000 and 2006. (Kase et al., 2007)

However, despite having marketing advantage in the global markets like Asia by

transferring iconic names, in terms of sportive side, the club could not meet its fans’

expectations without achieving any trophy between 2003 and 2007. (Kase et al., 2007) 35

Therefore, as explicitly can be seen, the strategy of just buying star players would

increase the club’s profile in the target markets but it cannot be guaranteed that it will

bring success on the pitch and obtaining titles is also essential element for the club’s

global brand. (Chanavat and Bodet, 2009) Apart from all the facts mentioned above,

PSG has not preferred to recruit any player from its target region, Asia by contrast with

its global rivals Manchester United and Arsenal which transferred Park Ji-Sung (Hill

and Vincent, 2006) and Junichi Inamoto respectively. (Desbordes, 2007)

Entering to Chinese Social Media Platforms: Following of getting inspired by two

abovementioned global strategies of biggest Spanish football clubs, Barcelona and

Real Madrid; PSG realized that football clubs’ official websites are not enough to reach

large group of global fans in overseas countries. Therefore, in 2013, the club decided

to actively communicate with its global fans through social media; not only on
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and also Chinese social network channels such as

Renren, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo. (Chanavat and Desbordes, 2017) As being

one of the first European clubs to open official accounts on Asian network channels,

the club could have a chance to reach out 591 million social network users in China.

(Chanavat and Desbordes, 2017) Beside opening social media accounts on the local

social media channels in the global markets, this strategy also requires the usage of

responsive language as how has been done by PSG. For example, the club’s official

social media accounts on the Chinese social media responsively reacted to the

earthquake which occurred in Sichuan province of China and condoled with Chinese

public for the victims. (Chanavat and Desbordes, 2017) Thereafter, the club’s

thoughtful approach has been mentioned on Chinese newspapers and Chinese fans

have appreciated for it.

Regional Partnership in Indonesia: The club has taken next step in its global 36

expansion process as seeking new regional sponsors and partners in the Asian region.

(Chanavat et al., 2017) The regional sponsorship and partnership market were

currently dominated by Manchester United with 38 partners at the end of 2013, so there

needed to position the club in a territory which has not been captured by any football

club yet. In this respect, Indonesia was specifically selected for the club’s innovative

global partnership program. (Chanavat and Desbordes, 2017) In November 2013, the

club’s website has begun to provide service in Indonesian language once after

realizing extraordinary potential of this market. Then, the club organized summer tour

to Asian region and especially visited Indonesia. (Chanavat, 2017) Consequently, in

2015, PSG has entered into its first partnership agreement in Indonesia with

Indonesian beverage company, Garuda Food which is owners of SuperO2 Supertivo

water. (Chanavat and Desbordes, 2017)

CSR Activities in India and Winter Tour in Qatar: In addition to all above given

international strategies mainly implemented in China and Indonesia, PSG has actively

been in Indian and Qatari football markets as well. To exemplify, the club’s global

operations has been ongoing since the Indian Super League has been found in 2014

and the club entered in a partnership with Indian League in 2015. (Chanavat and

Desbordes, 2017) As a part of the club’s entry strategy to Indian football market by

practising CSR activities, in each year, 500 children from poor regions of India have

been brought to compete in big tournaments organized by the club. (Ibid) According to

François and Bayle, social programs including the adoption of CSR activities are key

factors for football clubs to enter new global markets and develop their strategies in

these markets. (François and Bayle, 2014) The club’s most important appearance in

Qatari football market was the organization of winter tour between 31 December 2012

and 1 January 2013 (Chanavat et al., 2017) and new transfers of the club including
37
Lucas Moura was introduced to the media during this tour.

Conclusion

Although PSG has globally expanded to overseas markets, especially Asian region

later than other big European football clubs, it seems that the club could close the gap

between them with global strategies implemented in different markets such as China,

Indonesia, India and Qatar. (Chanavat et al., 2017) The club has been underlying

different specific strategies for all abovementioned markets and the club has unique

global planning which creates difference between PSG and other football clubs

mentioned in this paper.

2.5.2.3. Manchester United Football Club

Introduction
Manchester United Football Club is known as ‘‘Global United’’ after a successful

attempt to be globally expanded to overseas football markets. (Silk and Chumley,

2004) The club is now multinational community (Giulianotti, 2002) with 50-57 million

active fans worldwide at least in 20 foreign markets (Giulianotti, 2005) (Rossaaen,

2004), more than 200.000 club members from different territories, 200 branches of

supporters’ clubs in 25 nations (Bodet and Chanavat, 2010), TV broadcasting in 135

countries. (Rossaaen, 2004) According to Kleinman (2003), the club is most valuable

sport brand in the European sports industry, while it is defined as most valuable sport

brand around the world by Heller (2002).

There are two crucial steps for Manchester United FC’s globalization as explained

below; assigning of Peter Kenyon as an International Marketing Director in 1997 and

acquiring of the club by American Businessman Malcolm Glazer in 2005.

Initially, Former President of the club, Martin Edwards aimed improving club’s image 38

(Bose, 2000) and enhance fans base worldwide to reach profitable opportunities in the

overseas football markets and maximize the club’s commercial revenue. (Hill, 2006)

For this purpose, Peter Kenyon was assigned in 1997 as an International Marketing

Director of the club to form new international organizational structure for the club and

initiate global operation regarding this structure. (Bose, 2000) The primary goal of the

club has been announced by Peter Kenyon as moving forward by searching of new

territories to grow and finding out ways to bring this club to foreign markets. (Fisher,

2002) (Silk and Chumley, 2004) Apart from being expanded to all over the world, this

global approach under the management of Peter Kenyon gave club a chance to double

its profit from 2001 to 2003. (Andrews, 2004)

In the second step, the club was owned in 2005 by US Businessman Malcolm Glazer.

(Davies and Garrahan, 2003) (Hill, 2006) The reason of acquiring the ownership of this
club was that Manchester United FC has been most prominent global brand around

the world (Hill, 2006) and Glazer had an intention to maximize the potential of the club

by growing in international football markets in which the club might achieve lucrative

opportunities. (Olatawura, 2006) The club has eventually begun to be evolved into

American style sports organization (Maidment, 2002) with its commercial operation

based on entertainment, franchising etc. Thus, Glazer has highly been criticized by the

local fans with the concern of ‘‘Disneyisation’’ of their football club (Duke, 2002)

Apart from all mentioned above, there are three main essential factors for the rapid

growth of Manchester United FC in the overseas football markets.

In accordance with Andrews (2004), the club has globally built up glamorous brand

image and improve positive reputation. In this respect, the club’s name has been

leveraged through many international activities in the foreign football markets (Hill,

2006) as described under the heading of ‘‘Market Entry and Strategies’’. 39

The club has determined the strategy of targeting global football fans as a significant

point of its global strategic planning. The club has always corresponded to global fans’

needs and thereby converted global fans into loyal customers. (Anon, 2003)

As being the pioneer of entering Asian market (Hill and Vincent, 2006), Manchester

United had a chance to set the pattern of customer preference (Johnson and Tellis,

2008) and create social and emotional ties with global fans. (Gobet and Chanavat,

2010) Therefore, the club has highly been benefitted by being first mover to Asian

football market. According to Hill’s description, the club now is the pathfinder for other

football clubs which try to establish international identities in the overseas football

markets. (Hill, 2006)

International Markets: Manchester United FC has long-term global planning to create

strong brand equity all over the world, so its global strategies and operations are

different market oriented. The international strategies of the club have mainly taken

place in Asia and North America, US to be shown in the Figure 1. (Hill, 2006)

40

Figure 4: The Global Expansion of Manchester United Brand

Globalisation and Sports Branding: The Case of Manchester United. (Hill, 2006)

Manchester United has an estimated 40-50 million global fans in the Asian region,

while this number is 5 million in the North America. (Hill, 2006) There are some specific

reasons for the club to build its brand in these two regions; Asia and US.

Manchester United has early realized increasing popularity of the football among global

football fans living in Asian region. (Hill, 2006) For instance, Premier League matches

have been followed by more than 150 million households (Rossner and Shropshire,

2011) The growing popularity of the football and global fans’ interest towards football

are main elements for the club’s decision to implement its strategies in this region.
The club is also interested to expand its business to US market. The potential of fan

base and most importantly, multinational sponsors which contribute to the

development of football clubs like AIG, Nike, Pepsi, Vodafone etc. in the US (Rosaaen

and Amis, 2004) have attracted attention to club’s management.

There needs to briefly mention about that Manchester United has not confronted with

any major problems in Asian region, but the situation was different in US because the

club had a difficulty to conduct its global strategy regarding the deal with New York

Yankees. (Ross, 2004) According to Andrews (2004), the underlying reason for the

problem Manchester United has faced with is that Americans hate increasing

dominance of Europeans or Asians in their market (Andrews, 2004)

Market Entries and Strategies

Theatre of Dreams: In 1998, the first international project known as ‘‘Theatre of

41
Dreams’’ was announced to expand club’s brand across the world. (Bawden, 1999)

Despite the implication of the project in many overseas countries, the club mainly

targeted to reach large fan base in Asian region where there were more than 30 million

football fans in 1998. (Maidment, 2002) As main part of entry mode to Asian market,

the club has followed relationship-based marketing strategy to establish lasting

emotional bonds with its customers (Morgan and Hunt, 1994) or in other saying, with

its fans in the Asian market. (Hill, 2006)

The club has brought Old Trafford experience to its far away fans living in the Asian

countries. (Rosaaen and Amis, 2004) Therefore, some places in which engagement

activities take place regarding the sale of club’s merchandising products or in which

the global fans might experience to visit their club’s facilities such as stadium tour or

club’s museum have been found in many Asian countries. (Rosaaen and Amis, 2004)

(Bawden, 1999) (Bose, 2000) In these places, the club has used advanced technology
including webcast in a way of enabling global fans to follow their club and participate

in their club’s commercial activities. (Hill, 2006)

Alliance with New York Yankees: Following of successful attempt to enter Asian

market, Manchester United decided to initiate its global strategy in US market. (Piore

and Chan, 2001) In 2001, the club has firstly entered to US market with the strategy of

collaboration with American reputable baseball club, New York Yankees. (Rosaaen

and Amis, 2004) Two sports clubs competing in different countries and continents had

a purpose to be globally expanded in each other’s countries as Manchester United in

US and New York Yankees in UK. (Piore and Chan, 2001) Manchester United carefully

planned the entry mode to US market and consequently, decided to form an alliance

with New York Yankees which has good reputation and strong fan base in US sports

market. (Rosaaen and Amis, 2004)

Manchester United’s intended to use American club’s television channel known as 42

‘‘YES’’ to be broadcast in US, distribute its merchandising products in US through

Yankees’ stores and reach American club’s strong fan base. For this reason,

Manchester United’s matches have started to be shown on American club’s channel,

YES. (Rossaaen and Amis, 2004) As a consequence of this strategy, Yankee

supporters have been seen with Manchester United’s products in US and at the same

time, English fans with Yankees’ products in the Old Trafford. (Miller, 2004) (Andrews,

2004) However, unfortunately the strategy of broadcasting of Manchester United’s

matches on Yankees’ television channel was not long lasting because television rights

of Premier League was sold to American giant media company, FOX in 2003 and then

the club has not been allowed to broadcast its matches on Yankees’ channel.

(O’Connor, 2003)
All these activities given above were supported by the organization of US summer tour

in 2003 to increase the club’s global exposure in US. (Rossaaen and Amis, 2004) The

successful strategies of the club in US market including the collaboration with Yankees

and organization of summer tour has brought many fruitful results such as concluding

13-year contract of 303 million sterling with Nike in 2003. (Trecker, 2003) (Rawling,

2003) According to Heller (2010), Manchester United’s globalization attempt in US is

more than having purpose to increase its revenue, the club has positively developed

its brand image in US market. (Heller, 2010)

Besides different entry modes into Asian and US football markets, three significant

global strategies of Manchester United are explained below.

Sponsorship with Global Brands: Manchester United has a global policy to grow

together with its commercial alliances operating in different industries and making

contribution to the growth of sport to a great extent; some of them are as follows; Fuji, 43

Nike, Pepsi, Vodafone, etc. (Rossaaen and Amis, 2004) The club and its sponsors

have mutually been benefitted from the opportunities in foreign markets. For example,

as of 2000, Vodafone was anxious about entering to Asian market, but the club has

pushed Vodafone in this lucrative market. (Wood, 2000)

Beside entering agreement with global sponsors, the club expects its global sponsors

to be actively involved in its global practises in the overseas markets. The organization

of summer tours to foreign markets such as Asia and US need to be supported by the

club’s global sponsors. For instance, the summer tour to US in 2003 was promoted by

the club’s global American sponsors; Budweiser and Pepsi and Manchester United

Global Brand Enhancement Tour in 2004 in the same way (Saporito, 2004)

Partnership with Local Companies: The club have also been developing strategic

partnerships with local businesses which are active in target markets, Asia and US,
such as Aigo which is consumer electronic company in China or Public Bank in

Malaysia which the club has launched own credit card with. (Johnson and Tellis, 2008)

The most important point of this strategy is that the club does not need to invest any

money for opening branch, employing staff, etc. because all these are provided by

local company. (Bose, 2000) The club is only expected to supply goods in some

situations such as its merchandising products.

Diversified Products and Services: In accordance with Doyle’s (2001) opinion, the

club should be careful to select products and services in foreign markets. (Doyle, 2001)

To be successful in the marketing, the strategies of the companies to increase their

brand equity in the market should be established on customer base. (Keller, 1993) The

club has always tried to learn its Asian and American fans’ needs first (Hill, 2006) and

then offered them diversified range of products and services which would appeal their

choices. (Simms, 2002) Thus, the club could establish strong ties with its global fans 44

in Asia and US.

According to Simms (2002), the club has tried to be life-services brand because of

having intention to increase its brand value. (Simms, 2002)

The products and services provided by the club is so extended and separated to two

sides as football related or not football related including beverage products, financial

products and services, mobile and travel services, etc. (Hill, 2006) For example, as of

2004, Manchester United has launched its own credit card in US with American

multinational bank company, MasterCard. (Hill, 2006) The club has provided own

telecommunication service both in Asia and US with Vodafone. (Rossaaen and Amis,

2004) The club has own café and restaurant chain spread all over the world, mostly in

Asian region (Heller, 2002)

Conclusion
Obviously, Manchester United Football Club is considered as being first club to be

aware of the potential of overseas markets, especially China and US and then take

global action with various activities in these football markets. (Hill and Vincent, 2006)

This approach might be a reason behind why Manchester United has been accepted

as most valuable football brand around the world and how this club achieved worldwide

fan base which is estimated around 50 million. (Ratten, 2011, p. 765) Another important

point needs to be emphasized is that Manchester United has simultaneously been

managing its global operation in different markets such as Asia and US without highly

depending on just one market. The club has also unique market entry strategies by

creating activities which directly appeal to global fans (Hill, 2006) or establishing

cement ties with local market players.

2.5.2.4. Bayern Munich Football Club

Introduction 45

The management of Bayern Munich Football Club has been professionalized since the

arrival of Former President Uli Hoeneß in 1979. (Jonas and Wirth, 2009) However,

there was not any globalization attempt made by the club until the fact of that Karl-

Heinz Rummenigge was appointed as Executive Board Chairman in February 2002.

He has realized that the competition among football clubs is going to be global and in

terms of commercialization, the rivalry will exist in an international football markets;

especially Asian region. (Taylor, 2017)

Apart from being aware of where football world goes, the revenue sources in the

domestic market, Bundesliga has been saturated for Bayern Munich Football Club.

Rummenigge described the saturation of German football and its club’s purpose as

follows; (Conn, 2013)

 ‘‘People are looking at us as being too strong in the Bundesliga national

level, but we are looking at the European and international levels, and we

see that we have to go further’’

‘‘We will open our international offices, tour abroad and, in the end; it will

also help the Bundesliga. The other Bundesliga clubs will follow this

example automatically; they must. We see Bayern Munich as the

“locomotive” of the Bundesliga’’

He cannot be described as wrong because most of the clubs competing in the

Bundesliga have followed Bayern Munich’s global expansion strategy. For example,

while Borussia Dortmund visited Japan, Singapore and Malaysia in 2015, FC Schalke

preferred to be in China. In addition to these, Hamburger SV has entered into a

partnership with SIPG regarding youth development and Eintracht Frankfurt already

has collaborations with the Beijing Enterprises Group and the Federation of University 46

Sport of China (Lakhani, Schmidt, Norris and Herman, 2016)

Bayern Munich Football Club has carefully analysed overseas territories in which the

club might gain utmost benefit (Lakhani, Schmidt, Norris and Herman, 2016) and its

main strategy has been created based on three main elements; fan loyalty,

internationalization and financial sustainability which are related to each other to a

great extent. (Jochen, Matthias, Jan Marco and Walter, 2017)

Because of its successful global planning, Bayern Munich Football Club is one of the

top position football clubs in the world football market and the club is in everywhere all

around the world with its 4.250 official fan clubs and more than 330.000 registered

members. (Taylor, 2017)

International Market
FC Bayern Munich’s global plan is to spread German culture and soccer to overseas

regions and countries, especially to America and Asia, which are the centre of finance

and football. (Baena, 2017)

Specifically, for the China, the club was so willing to be expanded to this market

because Chinese consumer preferences directly fitted to club’s identity and values. For

instance, Chinese fans mainly prefer to support successful and historical clubs, so they

are so interested to learn more about this club’s unique history and team culture,

including star but humour players. (Lakhani, Schmidt, Norris and Herman, 2016)

Furthermore, the club’s main colours are red and white. Red colour is significantly

important in Chinese culture believed as bringing good luck and happiness. Lastly,

citizens of China have a positive approach towards German culture. (Lakhani, Schmidt,

Norris and Herman, 2016)

47

Market Entry and Strategies

US Market: As compared to English football clubs which started to implement their

international activities in late 90s, Bayern Munich Football Club lately initiated its first

global activity in 2004 by travelling to US for a summer tour. (Jonas and Wirth, 2009)

The main purpose of the club is to increase its brand awareness in the US market in

the first instance and attract new sponsors afterwards.

The club’s first serious attempt in US football market was the opening of its first

international office in New York in 2014. (Vidal, 2014) In this year, the club played two

friendly matches in Oregon and New Jersey as one of them is against MLS All-Star
team. (Pingue, 2013) Additionally, in the same year, the club introduced its US official

website with providing online shopping service specifically for the people living in US.

Apart from all explained above, as of 2018, the club has decided to cooperatively work

with FC Dallas in terms of exchange of training knowledge and talent promotion.

(König, 2018)

Asian Market: Although the club has been in many different football markets in Asian

region, the club has focused more on China than other countries. In this respect, in

2014, the partnership agreement was signed between the club and delivery company,

DHL. As a result of this partnership, Chinese football fans have an opportunity to

purchase their club’s merchandises via DHL eCommerce platform. (DHL Corporate,

2015). The club decided to physically move to China in 2015 and work together with

Chinese local companies such as Alibaba Group which has biggest online platform in

China called as Tmall. (Bayern Munich, 2015; Tmall, 2017) The club’s official 48

merchandise products have been sold on this giant platform.

Bayern München Football Clubs have been established in the different cities of China

as in Qingdao in 2016 and in Shenzhen in 2017. The concept is preferred to be

presenting young German football coaches in these schools and educating Chinese

coaches and players in the facilities of the club in Munich. These educatory attempts

which would make contribution to the Chinese football have increased the club’s

positive image in the local market. (König, 2018) In March 2017, the club’s official

website was renewed as giving service in nine different languages including Chinese.

(Bayern Munich, 2017c, g) (Taylor, 2017)

Finally, at the end of March 2017, the club announced the opening of its first Chinese

office in Shanghai and in the first step, the club employed just six permanent staffs
supported from Head Quarter in Munich, Germany. (Bayern Munich, 2016, Redaktion,

2017)

Beside specific market orientated activities described above, Bayern Munich has given

great importance to social media and CSR activities both in US and Asian football

markets.

Social Media: Social media is not a place only for content distribution, it also gives

social media experience (Oestreicher and Zalmanson 2013) and engagement to its

users. (Luo and Zhang 2013)

Therefore, social media can be defined as a platform which strengthen users’ loyalty

towards their brand. In the football industry, social media platforms allow football clubs

to interact with their global fans and give chance global fans to engage with their clubs

on online. (Wallace, 2014) Nowadays, football clubs have been actively using these
49
platforms to reach their global fans and develop strong ties with them. (Hollis, 2008)

Figure 5: FCB Social Media Platform Usage (04/2014) (compiled by casewriters)

FC Bayern München Goes Social – The value of social media for professional sports
clubs – Jochen, Matthias, Jan Marco and Walter, 2017.
As stated above, Bayern Munich Football Club is one the football clubs which have

been various local and global social media platforms and have been constantly

growing in these platforms in every passing days. While the club has been in global

social media platforms for a long time such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., the club has

also been successfully managing its local Chinese social media platforms including

Tencent, Sina Weibo, etc. (Baena, 2017)

CSR Activities: Social commitment activities of Bayern Munich Football Club is the

crucial part of the club’s local and global strategies. The club has been engaging with

its fans through CSR activities and at the same time, the club with its community helps

the people who are in difficult situations. (Baena, 2016) For instance, tsunami

unfortunately occurred in Sri Lanka in 2004 and it concluded with the death of several

people. The club has donated money for the victims who have suffered from tsunami

and this approach strengthen ties between the club and its supporters in Southeast 50

Asia. (Reiche, 2013)

Obviously, CSR activities positively affect the club’s brand on the eyes of football fans

(Baena, 2016) because in general, people have a strong feeling of commitment and

identification to the brand of companies undertaking CSR activities. (Gruen, Summers

and Acito, 2000) Image and brand of Bayern Munich Football Club has been positively

benefitted by CSR activities which are successfully integrated into the global strategic

planning of the club.

Conclusion

Following of the election of Karl-Heinz Rummenigge as a president of Bayern Munich

Football Club, the management of the club has realized increasing gap between

Bayern Munich and English football clubs which have started to initiate their global
activities earlier than Bayern Munich and then decided to take global actions. (Demireli,

2013)

Nevertheless, compared to its global rivals such as Manchester United, Real Madrid

and FC Barcelona; Bayern Munich is financially one of the top four football clubs

(Figure One) at the end of 2015/16 football season (Deloitte, 2017) by generating

€592m revenue which is more than triple from €173m the club earned in 1999. (Figure

Seven) (Taylor, 2017)

51

Figure 6: Marc Taylor analysis of Deloitte Money League for the 2011-2016 period
Guten Tag Shanghai und New York, mein Name ist FC Bayern München –
Taylor, 2017.
 Figure 7: Deloitte Money League between 1999-2016
Guten Tag Shanghai und New York, mein Name ist FC Bayern München –Taylor, 2017.

2.5.3. Comparative Analysis

Common Points: In the first instance, all football clubs explained in case studies have

same or similar reasons to be globally expanded to Asian and US football markets

such as gaining additional revenue source, reaching new global fan base, increasing

their brand equity worldwide etc. (Ratten, 2011) (Dolles and Söderman, 2008) Apart

from the reasons, four of them have same global approach which is not focusing on

only one region or country, so all of them have been conducting their global strategies

in different football markets; US, China, India, Indonesia, Qatar.

According to findings of the research, summer tour is common global activity which

has been organized by all of them as entry mode which has been done by Barcelona

Football Club in US football market or just one of the parts of their global strategies. 52

(Nauright, 2014) (Connell, 2017)

Global sponsorships with worldwide known companies such as Nike, Siemens, AIG

etc. might increase global reputation of the football clubs and helps them to proceed in

these global markets quickly. The partnership agreements with companies which are

strong in target markets like Alibaba Group, Chang, etc. (Dickson and Santos, 2017)

(Kerr and Gladden, 2008) might be beneficial football clubs to learn more about local

market dynamics from local companies’ experiences and might help football clubs to

consolidate its positions with the help of local company’s strong brand in foreign

market. For these reasons, four European leading football clubs have been

cooperatively working with their all global sponsors and local partners in terms of

managing their global strategies in overseas football markets.

Social media is another place for these football clubs to globally compete with each

other. Therefore, all of them give high importance to improve their social media

channels in a way of engaging with their global football fans. (Randhawa, 2011)

(Pueckler, 2015)

Main Differences: The one of main differences among four football clubs is the early

entry of Manchester United Football Clubs to Asian and US football markets as

compared to other three football clubs which decided to be globally expanded to these

markets after 2000s. However, although Manchester United has highest brand value

and is most well-known club in Asian and US markets, it might be said that especially

Paris Saint Germain and Bayern Munich has constantly growing in these markets and

these clubs are close to catch up biggest one.

Despite having some similarities, Barcelona-Paris Saint Germain and Manchester

United-Bayern Munich’s global approach is different from each other. Barcelona and 53

Paris Saint Germain Football Clubs have preferred to invest their money in new sports

in the global markets and create their own teams in these sports such as women

football, e-sport, etc. (Ginesta, Eugenio, Bonet and Ferrer, 2018) (Chanavat, 2017)

However, the global approaches of Manchester United and Bayern Munich are just

football orientated.

In terms of CSR Activities, Barcelona, Paris Saint Germain and Bayern Munich Football

Clubs have taken these activities as main part of their global strategies so they have

actively been involved in social responsibility projects in global markets. In accordance

with my research, these activities are just small part of Manchester United’s global

strategies. (François and Bayle, 2014) (Richelieu and Desbordes, 2012) (Babiak and

Wolfe, 2009)
In these days, most of the football clubs prefer to open official office in foreign football

markets in order to directly contact local sponsors and manage their global activities.

However, timing of opening official office can be different from club to club. For

example, Bayern Munich opened its official office in US to initiate its global activities,

(Vidal, 2014) but Barcelona opened its official office in US later than organizing

summer tours, entering into partnership with MLS, organizing CSR activities. (Zuniga,

2016) (Ginesta, Eugenio, Bonet and Ferrer, 2018)

Four different football clubs have entered into partnership with local football leagues or

sports clubs. For instance, while Barcelona and Paris Saint Germain have local

partnership with local football leagues, MLS and Indian respectively; Manchester

United and Bayern Munich have collaboratively worked with New York Yankees (Ross,

2004) and FC Dallas in US football market. (König, 2018)

In terms of social media, four of them have been actively managing their social media 54

channels and organizing fan engagement activities with their global fans but two of

them; Paris Saint Germain and Bayern Munich are also responsive to incidents which

happen in local markets such as disasters happened in Sichuan, China (Chanavat and

Desbordes, 2017) and Sri Lanka. (Reiche, 2013)

Unique and Creative Strategies: There are various strategies implemented by

European leading four football clubs explained in case studies, but some of the

strategies which are unique and creative make difference to attract global attention.

Barcelona Football Club’s strategy of investing money for getting franchise of MLS or

women’s league football team is obviously different strategy which have attracted local

media attention in US and most of the football fans have been informed about

Barcelona Football Club’s intention to enter US football market. (Ginesta, Eugenio,

Bonet and Ferrer, 2018) (Ginesta, 2011)

Furthermore, radical transformation of Paris Saint Germain’s club structure and brand

including redesigning logo, creating slogan which are suitable for an international

market; Asia and US were so brave and risky movement. Rather than having been in

China and US, the club decided to enter football markets in which there is high interest

towards football and have not been dominated and captured by its global rivals such

as Indonesia, India and Qatar. (Chanavat et al., 2017)

Manchester United’s first global strategy called as Theatre of Dreams (Bawden, 1999)

might be assumed as one of the most unique global strategies in the football industry.

Apart from that, the club is still only one about providing most diversified range of

products and services to its global fans.

Moreover, Bayern Munich has wisely entered to China as collaborating with giant

Chinese online retailer, Alibaba Group about selling club’s merchandising products to

its Chinese football fans on company’s online platform. The club’s another strategy of 55

contributing to the development of local football by setting up football schools all over

China has been appreciated by Chinese football fans and this approach has exactly

enhanced club’s awareness in China. (König, 2018)

3. CONCLUSION

In the light of information provided above, global football markets including Asia and

US are still attractive for all football clubs from lowest to top position. However,

globalization of the football clubs is long process so there needs to be patient during

this process and short- and long-term international strategies must be well planned by

carefully analysing and considering target market’s dynamics, current fans and

sponsors’ reactions, etc. The reason why these four European leading football clubs

have achieved great success in Asian and US football markets is that they have

created extensive global organization plan prior to initiate their global operation and
implement their strategies and they have taken all internal and external factors into

account which they might face with in the future.

In this research, Asian and US football markets’ dynamics and market entry modes

and strategies which might be implemented in these markets are given to be an

example for football clubs which are planning to enter these markets.

4. RECOMMENDATIONS

All recommendations which might be helpful for the football clubs which have not had

any certain plan and strategy in Asian or US football markets are provided on

Appendix-I.

5. LIMITATION AND FUTURE RESEARCH

I have faced with two main problems during my research. Initially, it is so difficult to

obtain data and academic information about the internationalization strategies of the 56

football clubs and benefits gained by them in overseas football markets because this

type of data and information is kept as secret by the football clubs and for this reason,

this has not been published or disclosed by them. The only way to reach useful data

or information is to review academic books which are specifically written about this

subject and academic article published on online. Another limitation for this paper is

word limit, which must be around 15.000 words. Actually, I had an intention to enrich

this paper with diversified range of case studies including low position football clubs’

global attempts which might be compared with case studies provided in this paper and

I was also planning to mention about difficulties which the football clubs have been

facing with as implementing their global strategies such as rising protests of local fans,

different market dynamics, etc. However, this word limit did not allow me to extend my
research and analyse this subject from different perspectives. Now, I am planning to

extend this research by explaining abovementioned missing points in my future paper.

6. TIMELINE

I have carefully followed below-given detailed time schedule including organization,

research and writing steps with supervisor meetings which have been done on skype.

I have determined some key dates with Mrs. Bridgewater for submission of my drafts,

feedbacks given by Mrs. Bridgewater and our skype meetings. According to this,

following of my every submission regarding my literature review or dissertation drafts,

Mrs. Bridgewater has sent my document back to me two or three days later according

to her availability and schedule. Additionally, Skype meetings are planned to be done

one- or two-days later receipt of my document with feedbacks. I have sent my

document back to Mrs. Bridgewater a week later each of skype meetings. The reason

why I prepared this plan with my supervisor’s suggestion is to manage our time well 57

and to be informed about which date we must be available in advance.

Time schedule is structured as follows;

Work Date
Proposal Submission 14 June
First Meeting on Skype 27 June
Organization and Research step 1 June – 15 July
Literature Review Draft 1 Submission 20 July
Receipt of Feedback 29 July
Second Meeting on Skype 1 August
Literature Review Draft 2 Submission 12 August
Receipt of Feedback 15 August
Literature Review Draft 3 Submission 26 August
Receipt of Feedback 29 August
Final Submission on Vital 12 September
I. APPENDIX / Recommendations

Decision Step: The football clubs should be careful to determine which market they

are going to enter, and they should be well informed about target market and its

dynamics. In the market choice, I suggest football clubs not to be depend on just one

market if they can manage their global operations in different regions and countries at

the same time. In addition, football clubs which are planned to be globally expanded

to overseas markets should seek for new football markets which are not saturated and

not dominated by big European football clubs such as US and China. They should

focus more on the countries in which football has been growing and they might attract

more attention such as Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.

Following of market choice, they should create market-based planning with short- and

long-term strategies.
58
Strategies: Football clubs should prefer to be unique and creative in their globalization

process, and they should avoid imitating other football clubs’ global strategies because

all clubs have different internal and external factors and dynamics. Additionally, football

clubs should focus on increasing their brand awareness in the foreign markets by

undertaking different type of strategies as follows;

i. The strategy of launching official office in foreign market would not be enough

to reach success in the short term and it is not a good idea to open office as

market entry strategy. Other market-based strategies including CSR activities,

summer tours should be organized to increase club’s awareness in the market

and then opening official office might be rational decision.

ii. CSR activities should be at the centre of club’s global planning and strategies

because these types of activities have direct impact on media coverage and

positive effect on global football fans’ perception about the club. Football clubs
 might send their communities when any incidents happen in the foreign market

or financially help local charities or foundations. Apart from these, whenever any

incident occurs, football clubs should share responsive messages about

incidents in foreign market because although it seems as not being so important,

the clubs which have showed their support to global fans in their difficult

situations have been appreciated by them and their relationship with global fans

would be strengthen.

iii. Summer tour organizations should not be limited to playing football matches and

attending global tournaments. Football clubs should organize fan engagement

organizations and merchandising activities to reach their global fan base and

satisfy them during summer tours.

iv. Social media is essential platform for football clubs to interact with their global

fans along with engaging social media activities. Football clubs’ social media
59
accounts should be actively used by providing their global fans creative content

and activities. Football clubs should have accounts providing service in target

market’s own local language and they also should be active on local social

media accounts in target markets such as Tencent and Weibo in China.

v. I highly recommend football clubs to support the development of football in

foreign markets by founding football schools or having collaboration with local

football clubs in terms of supporting their youth development projects.

vi. It is advantage for football clubs to have global sponsors because brand

reputation of the global companies increases the football clubs’ awareness in

the foreign market. Therefore, the selection of main sponsor is so crucial for the

football clubs having intention to be globally expanded and I advise them not to
 enter into main sponsorship agreement with local companies which have not

been in the global base.

vii. The partnership with companies which are well-known brands in target markets

would bring football clubs competitive advantage over other football clubs in the

foreign markets because the football clubs might quickly grow in the foreign

market thanks to strong brand of local companies. This one is also one of the

best strategies to be well-informed about foreign market dynamics by learning

from local partner companies’ market experiences.

viii. Football clubs should be concentrated on bringing local fans and their

merchandising products together in foreign markets. In this respect, in the first

place, merchandising products might be sold on online platforms which might

be provided by local online retail companies such as partnership between

Bayern Munich and Tmall / Alibaba Group in China.

60

Note: This paper includes 14.983 words without cover sheet, appendix and

references.

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