In September, over 2,000 key figures from all over the football world got together in Seville, Spain, to shape the future of football. The World Football Summit (WFS) was underway, and the Sport Finland network also participated together with eight growth companies and start-ups. Sport Finland gathered the companies under the Finnish country brand and promoted the development of new solutions and business opportunities as a team.
The WFS trip was a follow-up to Sport Finland's first business delegation to Madrid in the spring. In Madrid, Finns met representatives of the World Football Summit who said they were after Nordic visibility for their events.
- We learned at that time that operators in the football industry are very interested in the innovation culture of Finnish sports. The aim of the WFS trip was to make Finnish expertise in business, research and regional development visible in the international football market. The business appeal of football is not only tied to the match on the field or a player’s physical performance; it extends from engaging fans and viewers to nearly everything under the sun, says Sport Finland project manager Alisa Heikkinen.
The World Football Summit was an opportune platform for networking with clubs and leagues as well as other operators that make decisions on innovation as the event featured plenty of facilitated encounters, for example at exhibition stands and through various networking activities. The trip also provided an opportunity to hear presentations from top experts and meet with some of the most prominent professionals in the industry.
Regional developers need to understand businesses and international operators
For companies, delegation visits can, at best, lead to sales deals that progress into tangible results. What is also significant is that international markets, for example in recently commercialised competitive and elite sports, have their own innovation ecosystems, which have significant resources and a desire not only to acquire expertise, but also to participate in developing it and tailoring it to their own needs. Thus, Finnish expertise must also be adapted and combined with solutions already used by various operators.
- Regional developers need to understand the operations and interests of both business operators and international partners to align them in the best possible way and create genuinely effective practices. In addition to exports, it is important that needed expertise can also be brought to Finland, Heikkinen contemplates.
The experience of the Sport Finland network has also shown that it is worthwhile for companies offering very different services to explore the world of football and sport with an open mind.
- As one of the biggest events in football, the World Football Summit offered excellent opportunities for networking and finding new partners. We wouldn't have met these people at a construction or electricity fair, which one might think is up our alley," says Timo Saarinen, CEO of eWATT, a company offering energy-saving solutions.
Sari Hallikainen, entrepreneur of digital experience services provider Awesome Crowd, agrees:
- Several clubs and leagues, such as LALIGA, are constantly looking for opportunities for new business and, for example, engaging their fans even better. Social impact is also very important for clubs.
Sport Finland as an umbrella
Sport Finland acts as an umbrella for Finnish expertise worldwide. At the WFS event, the goal was to demonstrate that Finnish experts are one and the same team, and Sport Finland had its own exhibition stand, which brought together companies under the Finnish country brand.
- The most important thing for the whole was a team capable of contributing to the development of new solutions for the sport as well as other business opportunities, says Heikkinen.
Sure enough, Sport Finland's business representatives did bring each other up while networking in the event.
- The companies involved in the trip also caught potential customers who were not a good fit for their own business, but who might have helped someone else. We all know that Finland is a small country and we need to cooperate across national borders. Personally, I strongly believe that working together and helping others pays off for everyone, says Laura Andelin, entrepreneur of Onit Sport, which focuses on psychological coaching for children and adolescents in sport.
The teamwork of the Sport Finland group sparked admiration and praise. The visibility of the unified delegation also led to a joint pitch session for the entire Finnish team with a prominent industry operator, as well as a proposal to initiate international cross-regional development work for cities in the Spanish market.
Football world can serve as a springboard
In the future, innovations that contribute to player development, injury prevention or growing the football community will be important, believes Mihaly Szerova, Jyväskylä University professor and doctor of sport and health sciences, who participated in the WFS trip. Szerova also emphasises that in the future, the football world will have to pay more attention to responsibility.
- The industry needs to highlight also the more critical points of view and shortcomings, for example in terms of responsibility in the football industry, Szerova says.
Football is the world's largest sport, both in terms of numbers of enthusiasts and in terms of many economic indicators, so there is also plenty of business potential in the football world.
- In Finland, the sports sector focuses on sports culture, whereas internationally, the impact of the sports sector is also recognised as a major societal factor, with its potential influence seen as extending far beyond just sports. The industry includes, for example, large sponsoring companies with extensive, international networks. The sports sector can thus serve as a springboard for a wide range of collaborations, Andelin concludes.
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The business delegation trip to World Football Summit Europe in Seville was organized on September 18–19, 2024, as part of the Sport Finland network's activities. The network is based on a joint project led by the cities of Jyväskylä, Lahti, and Kuopio, supported by the European Regional Development Fund, and implemented between April 1, 2023, and December 31, 2024. The companies participating in the trip were eWatt, Awesome Crowd, Kuitu Media, Northern Sports Insight and Intelligence (ACT Head Impact Tracker), ONIT Sport, Nordic Rack and Office (nro.one), Dribla and Appis.
