Human Resources and Football

EDUCATION Programme

UEFA Certificate in Football Management -- The Turkish Edition

Assessment Guidelines

Each participant is expected to submit his/her assignment for Module 1, 2 & 3 by the 07.05.2017 directly to IDHEAP project manager. Participants should provide concrete evidence (facts and references) to consolidate observations and assess the feasibility of the recommendations made. We emphasise the fact that these observations should be personal ones, drawn from their own assessment and not necessarily reflecting those of their institution. You are expected to write 250 words (or more) for each of the questions.

Criteria for Grading Assignments

Assignment grades will be communicated three weeks after they have been submitted which will give participants ample opportunity to take into consideration the constructive feedback they have been given and use this to improve their subsequent submission. The criteria for grading are listed in the table below.

Criteria for Grading Written Assignments

Clear presentation of the context related to your department/organisation (10%)

Critical analysis and evaluation of the managerial aspects of the department/institution (50%)

Appropriate use of theoretical concepts and concrete evidence to underpin observation (effective use of module content and referencing) (20%)

Relevant conclusions and recommendations specific to the needs of respective department/institution (20%)

Each assignment will be graded according to the Swiss grading system, with grades ranging from 6 (excellent) to 1 (very poor), 4 is the passing grade.

How to choose your unit of analysis? For representatives of other stakeholders:

• You should select your organisation as a whole.

UEFA CFM Module 1

Questions for participants working in another football organisation other than the National Association

1. Describe your organisation in detail. What are the main tasks and objectives? How is your organisation structured (please describe the organs governing your organisation and the structure of the administration)?

I am currently working at Besiktas JK Football Operations Department and I would like to describe this organisation in detail. First of all, Besiktas JK Football Operations Department's main objective is being successful in all competitions both domestic and international levels. Considering this issue, our organisation must be well-organised and structed at all levels.

Besiktas JK Football Operations Department divides four main units; technical, administrative, medical and media units. If you look at theoretical perspective, Director of Football governs whole organisation. However, in Turkey, Head Coach is strongest person with practical base.

Technical Unit includes head coach, five assistant coach, two goalkeeper coach, performance trainer and match analysist. Administrative Unit includes team manager, two assistant directors of football, two interpreter and director of football who is sitting top of the unit and whole department. Media unit includes press officer, photographer and two club tv reporter. Finally, Medical Unit includes doctor, three physios, three masseur and head of medical who governs medical unit.

Unpaid elected officials, such as president and his board, recruits above paid staff and expect them success. Success comes with good management and strong collaboration among all units.

Match operations, transfer operations, relations with UEFA and other executive matters are conducted by Administrative Unit. Administrative staff should be engaged world football trend and renew his knowledge day by day.

When we look at the Media Unit, which is the most dynamic one, club press officer's responsibility includes following all media reactions of players, technicals, staff etc. and lead them effectively in obedience to today's world.

On the other hand, Head of Medical Unit is sitting top of the medical unit and coordinate all medical staff during whole football season. In today's football, players' injuries may destroy teams' success and cause to losing money. Using up-to-date technology, medical staff should recover players' injuries as soon as possible.

Once and for all, technical unit make their job at pitchside contrary to other units. Head coach and his assistants set formations, make strategies, analyze opponent teams and increase players' performance up.

As is seen, all units have different responsibilities but same objective; to become successful. Teamwork is the best practise and essential part of the organisation. As Chappelet Jean-Loup (2014) stated, Football is a game before being a product, a sport before being a market, a show before being a business.

Reference List

Chappelet J.-L., Aquilina D. (eds.)(2014).Handbook of Football Association Management. 2nd ed., UEFA Education Programme, Nyon, 247.

2. Please describe your organisation current level of interaction with the national football association. Specifically, please outline the activities where you believe your organisation is being particularly effective in working in partnership with your national football association.

Besiktas Jimnastik Kulubu, or the Besiktas Gymnastics Club as it is referred to in English, is a Turkish sports club whose history dates all the way back to 1903 when it was founded in the Besiktas district in Istanbul. The organization that I am a part of is known as the JK Football Club and is one of the most successful of all the sporting organizations that are based in Turkey. The Federation Cup was created in 1956 and the Turkish football league, was first established in 1959, and Besiktas was been a major competitor both before and after its inception.

Besiktas JK Football Club has a rich heritage and a strong following on a local, national, and even international level. The team is currently ranked as the 43rd position in the European ranking system (coefficient 45.840) and the new stadium has garnered a lot of momentum for the team headed into a new season. The new stadium, the Vodafone Arena, has a capacity of over 43,000 spectators and meets all the requirements for the UEFA 4-category designation, which is the highest category in the ranking system. This stadium is an illustration of the love of Turkish football as well as their hopes for the future as they become even more competitive on the international level.

Besiktas has always been one of the pioneers in establishing football's sporting dominance domestically. It works closely with the national football association in many ways to coordinate activities and ensure that the game is played in a consistent manner, with effective operations, and with integrity. We have promoted the sport and have represented the values that the game embodies to the best of our abilities at all times and always put football first.

However, to ensure that football is put first, it requires a great deal of coordination to first organize the competitions and perform subsequent operations related to regulating, licensing, and promoting the team and the sport in general.

3. Describe your organisation current level of interaction with other national stakeholders in football. Specifically, please outline the activities where you believe your organisation is being particularly effective in working in partnership with other national stakeholders in football.

Stakeholder engagement is an important component to managing an organization. There is a plethora of different sets of national stakeholders that we interact with on a regular basis. This includes everyone from the national government through its representatives, to media organizations, to sponsors and strategic partnerships that the club holds. In a broad sense, you could consider the whole country as a set of national stakeholders to a greater or lesser extent since they are all connected in one form or another, even if these connections are only indirect in nature. I believe that our organization has been effective in managing stakeholder interactions, but I also believe that there is some room for improvement.

Communication and relationship skills with stakeholders have evolved in the last few decades and keeping constant communications effectively has in some ways become easier, but in other areas new threats have emerged from the new technologies and mediums that we use. Now many organizations have to deal with a number of external threats and different forms of communication and there is some level of security concerns with play a more visible role in the organization. Still expectations of the stakeholders have grown in the sense that we have more regular communications and through more mediums. This has created both additional responsibilities and opportunities for new stakeholder communication strategies

Some of the more modern approaches to the stakeholder analysis have been defined as "systematically gathering and analyzing quantitative and qualitative information to determine whose interests should be taken into account throughout the organizations operations

. The stakeholder communication networks have become so complex while simultaneously becoming increasingly important. Furthermore, the team and the organization generally wish to communicate with one voice, which also takes a great deal of coordination. Therefore, I think our organization could look for more analytical approaches to communicating with the different groups of stakeholders at the national level.

4. Drawing on the collaborative practice previously identified, please outline some practical proposals as to how your organisation might further improve the quality of its relation with the national football association.

One idea that could help foster more effective collaboration between our organization and the quality of its relations with the national football association would be to designate projects with a cross-functional group of members that is made up of with members of all of the relevant organizations. For example, in projects that are related to some specific operational goal for the schedule, the national association could build more effective tools and channels that allow all of the affected parties to offer comments, feedback, and suggestions so that much of the decision making can go through collaborative processes and everyone's perspective is heard. Given the advances in technology, much of this work could be made convenient to all the representatives as well.

One example might be to host an internal wiki with best practices that have been identified relevant to any important issues or processes. A wiki could serve as a tool in which the group can communicate technical information in a way that can show the progress of the group's insights and findings in a linear fashion. Users can contribute what and when they prefer and the group members can always refer back to the wiki if needed and it can also be used to train other members or bring new members up to speed. However, other specific objectives might be more effective in different mediums. But the general impression that I have in regards to fostering better relationships with the national association is that we could find ways to improve communication channels and build more collaboration into the process for mutual benefit.

5. Drawing on the best practice previously identified, please outline some practical proposals as to how your organisation might further improve the quality of its partnership activities with other national stakeholders in football.

One of the new phenomena that seems to be gathering some momentum in different types of organizations is the idea of crowdsourcing different objectives that are relevant to the organization. Although we actively manage different aspects of the team, the team really belongs to all the stakeholders and including them in the decision-making process can be a mutual advantageous process on many levels. For example, the organization can benefit from

6. Select organisation similar to yours in your country that you consider as a benchmark in the way this organisation cooperates with the national football association and/or other national football stakeholders and explain why. What are the lessons learned for your national association?

(Please write your answer here)

As the assistant director of the football operations, it will be necessary to not only to understand all the requirements and responsibilities that are expected of this position. The new principles that FIFA has announced to govern many of the operations include some notion of sustainability and these will have to be incorporated into all aspects of operations and consider the needs of many different stakeholders, both internal and external.

Figure 1 - Principles of Sustainability (FIFA World Cup, 2012)

FIFA and the LOC strive to promote the integration of the following principles, which stem from ISO 26000, into the management and operations of the FIFA World Cup. Such principles will likely be integrated into more and more of the entire organizations operations and every level of organization. These principles have been defined as

1. Accountability: We are accountable for our impacts on society and the environment. We take responsibility for the impact of our decisions and activities on society and the environment, especially significant negative consequences, and we take measures to prevent repetition of unintended and unforeseen negative effects.

2. Ethics and anti-corruption: We base our behaviour on the values of honesty, equity and integrity.

3. Transparency: We are transparent about decisions and activities that impact on society and the environment. We disclose in a clear, accurate and complete manner the policies, decisions and activities for which we are responsible, including known and likely impacts on society and the environment.

4. Respect for stakeholder interests: We respect, consider and respond to the interests of our stakeholders.

5. Respect for the rule of law: We respect the rule of law and comply with legal requirements in all jurisdictions in which the organisation operates, even if those laws and regulations are not adequately enforced.

With these principles identified and assumed to be relevant to the football management in general moving the sport into the future, coupled with the information provided in operations management section of the UEFA CFM, we can apply the principles of sustainability to human resources, financial resources, maintaining customer satisfaction, and designing service operations.

3. Which changes would you suggest to the current strategy and why?

I would implement a stronger focus and dedication to maintain sustainable practices throughout the entire organization. The organization is often seen as a leader or a role model from many perspectives, and therefore such a dedication to sustainability would not only benefit the organization directly, but it would also likely inspire others to be more sustainable as well.

Responsible human resources practices, community development, environmental stewardship, outreach programs and charity could all represent issues are all issues related to sustainability. These issues all are related to the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) that has gained a significant amount of global attention in many circles. Despite the variances in motivation, the use of CSR reporting mechanisms has become popular in the world's largest companies. KPMG's International Corporate Responsibility Reporting Survey of 2011 found that 95% of the 250 largest companies in the world currently report on their CSR activities, and that nearly half of these companies reported gaining financial value from such initiatives

Given the move to a sustainable football future, CSR will also be a primary consideration of HR departments in the next fifty years. Organization are not only increasingly expected to contribute to better management of external and internal factors related to ecological concerns as well as social sustainability issues, but it also expected to treat its HR assets in a similar manner.

4. What are the necessary conditions in order to enable you to implement these changes in your department/organisation?

To be truly sustainability, it requires that the organization acts in unison on many levels to be better stewards of their operating environments. Furthermore, as inequality in the world continues to grow, organizations will also have a responsibility to extend their social contributions to the local communities in which they operate. Given the criticisms of the World Cup in Brazil, this will become increasingly important. According to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, the majority of Brazilians (six out of ten, to be exact) believe that the World Cup will do little to improve the social conditions of their country, which is particularly shocking given that Brazil is considered one of the most soccer-obsessed countries in the world

Another component of human resources that is important is fair and equitable compensation and benefits packages. Research has indicated that equity-based compensation system, performance appraisal system, effective career planning system and a robust employee participation in the organizations' decisions and actions are among the key strategic HR practices that influence organizational performance

. Therefore, fair and equitable compensation and policies has many advantages for both employees and employers in building a human resources competitive advantage. Such factors all have influence upon the overall satisfaction levels that are experienced throughout the organization. Thus, having fair and progressive policies that are based upon evidence-based practices that can create a strong human resources team that can effectively manage all of the team's and events operational needs.

5. Formulate 2 SMART objectives for your department/organisation. Indicate for each objective a series of detailed and timely actions that can lead to the obtainment of this goal.

(Please write your answer here)

6. Identify a strategy successfully implemented by another sport organisation similar to yours? In your point of view, what were the reasons for its success? Is it applicable to your national association/organisation?

(Please write your answer here)

UEFA CFM Module 3

1. What type of motivational tools are utilised in your particular department / organisation in order to ensure that projects are executed successfully?

(Please write your answer here)

2. What are the main aspects of the performance measurement and evaluation employed in your department / organisation?

(Please write your answer here)

3. What are the main advantages and disadvantages in using tools to improve customer satisfaction?

(Please write your answer here)

4. Identify one project in your department / organisation that performed above expectations. What are the lessons learned that you can extrapolate to other projects?

(Please write your answer here)

An idea on this one would be helpful as well.

5. Identify one project in your department / organisation that performed below expectations. What recommendations would you give to boost this project's performance in the future?

(Please write your answer here)

Please give me an example of a project.

6. Provide recommendations on how to improve the financial performance of your department/organisation. What are the opportunities to increase revenues and/or to decrease costs?

(Please write your answer here)

Khalid, K., & Dines, R. (2010, May 10). Security Organization 2.0: Building A Robust Security. Retrieved from Symantec: http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/articles/b-article_security_organization_20_building_a_robust_security_organization.en-us.pdf

Kloppenborg, T. (2013). Contemporary Project Management.

(FIFA World Cup, 2012)

(Hughen, Lulseged, & Upton, 2014)

(Gonzalez, 2014)

(Jimoh & Danlami, 2011)