José María Cruz at the Web Summit in Lisbon

First team

JOSÉ CASTRO AND JOSÉ MARÍA CRUZ TALK ABOUT THE 'SEVILLA OF THE FUTURE' AT THE WEB SUMMIT

05/11/2019

The President and the CEO took part in two different discussions in Lisbon, where they were joined by other professionals from the sporting world and explained the successful business model of the club

Tuesday was the day for Sevilla FC to take centre stage in the 2019 Web Summit in Lisbon. Considering that it is the most important technological event in the world, the event is due to hold over 70,000 people from 163 countries from Monday until Thursday. Various subjects will be talked about, and the participants taking part range from the President of Microsoft to the ex-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair. Moreover, the main reason that Sevilla FC were invited to talk was so that they could explain the exponential growth of the club in recent years.

First of all, the CEO of the club, José María Cruz, spoke at the table that was labelled: The Business of Football, which was looking to offer to those listening a 360° view of how a modern football club functions, bringing together leaders from the development of the game itself, management and sports science to determine what is needed to be successful. In a debate moderated by the British journalist, Andy Mitten, Cruz spoke alongside Sean O'Connor - co-founder of the sports monitoring company StatsSports, as well as former French international player, Pascal Chimbonda.

In addition, he gave some of the clues to the evolution of the club in the era of new technology, explaining that the 'big data' department is under the control of Monchi. Speaking along the same lines, he analysed the way in which the club is using these new methods to optimise the day-to-day work of the professionals, focusing on performance and injury prevention. Straight afterwards, it was the turn of club President, José Castro, who, along with journalist of 'The Independent', Miguel Delaney, spoke about the unusual case of Sevilla FC. That is, that they have come from being a club on the brink of extinction at the start of the century, to now becoming an illustrious European club. Castro spoke about the optimisation of economic resources, the role of the academy system, and the way in which you can compete successfully with the economic football giants in both Spain and Europe.