The FBA Barcelona Stadium Tour supported by ESSMA

Sascha Dorsaz, an Alumnus of the FBA Professional Master in Football Business, about his experience from The FBA Stadium Tour to Barcelona, supported by ESSMA. The FBA, an ESMMA Partner, offers its students a Professional Master in Football Business with the objective to deliver them all the necessary tools and an optimal learning environment in order to succeed in the passionate and dynamic football industry.

“We had the opportunity to discover some amazing places and this is what will make this Field Trip unique and will forever stay in our memories.”

On Sunday evening, we were lucky enough to experience LaLiga match. Thanks to ESSMA, we went to the match between RCD Espanyol de Barcelona and Sevilla FC. Even if the match itself wasn’t as technical as I expected it to be, this experience was so unique that we will all keep it close to our heart. Approximately 20’000 supporters attended the game and it was delightful to see how Spanish people enjoy football.

Day 1

As a first visit we went again to RCDE Stadium but this time not for a match but instead for a complete stadium tour. This stadium was built in 2009 and has a capacity of around 40,000 seats. David Tolo - Head of Tours and Club Historian - gave us an amazing overview of the situation of the club, its relation with Barcelona, and its importance in Catalunya. Thanks to Sergi Martinez - Sponsorship, Hospitality and New Business Manager - we also had some insights about the sponsorship relation they are building with China and about the importance of the broadcasting revenues compared to the matchday revenues for a club playing in LaLiga.

After our visit to RCD Espanyol, we went to Girona FC. This was a completely different environment, but the experience was amazing. We were very well received by Jose Ortega - Head of Partnerships and Business Development - and Aran Navarro - Marketing Director - who both gave us presentations about the club. The three main values of Girona FC are tireless, ambitious and close to fans. We also had the opportunity to visit the local changing room which was better than I expected. It was the first time I saw a football table in the middle of a locker room, but it also shows that this team is a family. The players are coming earlier on matchday just to enjoy some time together. 

The stadium itself is not very big but we could feel that the atmosphere in there during a home football game must be tremendous. People in Girona are very proud of the club even if it just got relegated and I honestly felt it during this field trip.

"We were very well received by Jose Ortega - Head of Partnerships and Business Development - and Aran Navarro - Marketing Director - who both gave us presentations about the club."

Day 2

The following day we had the opportunity to visit Camp Nou. Octavi Tarrés, - Business Development and Partnership Manager - started with a very interesting presentation on how FC Barcelona is going to improve their entire ticketing process. Even for a club such as Barcelona, they are still facing many issues regarding the ticketing process and they will come up with some solutions in the future that were very interesting for us to discover. We also had an amazing presentation on how the new Camp Nou will be designed. FC Barcelona is not only a football club, they have many other professional sports such as basketball, futsal, handball and ice hockey. They are lucky to own all the lands around the stadium so they will completely redesign area around Camp Nou.

After this conference we could make a stadium tour with a guide. Personally, I was so surprised about the number of people doing this tour, we could barely follow our guide. The stadium is very old but again, the atmosphere inside was very special.

Then we had the amazing opportunity to go to Ciutat Esportiva and La Masia. This will probably be a unique experience in my entire life because they usually do not let anyone cross their gates. Inside, all the sports are unified in the same location and it is amazing to see such big structures for different sports.

This was the end of our amazing field trip. I want to address a special and overwhelming thank you to the ESSMA and The FBA teams. Thanks to them everything was amazingly well organized. In every club we went, we were especially well received, and I know they made everything possible for us to have the best experience ever. 

Sascha Dorsaz Sascha is an alumnus of The FBA’s Professional Master in Football Business, graduated in August 2019. He can be contacted via LinkedIn.