Research Topic How can we adapt an academy to help promote the development of football in Uganda and improve the recognition of upcoming athletes in the region? Bachelor Thesis Geneva Business School Bachelor in Sports Management Submitted by: Martha Okello Akullo Geneva, Switzerland Approved on the application of: Mr. Frank Hendrickx And Dr. XXXXXXXXXXX Date: 21 May 2020 Declaration of Authorship “I hereby declare: ● That I have written this work on my own without other people’s help (copy-editing, translation, etc.) and without the use of any aids other than those indicated; ● That I have mentioned all the sources used and quoted them correctly in accordance with academic quotation rules; ● That the topic or parts of it are not already the object of any work or examination of another course unless this has been explicitly agreed on with the faculty member in advance; ● That my work may be scanned in and electronically checked for plagiarism. ● That I understand that my work can be published online or deposited to the university repository. I understand that to limit access to my work due to the commercial sensitivity of the content or to protect my intellectual property or that of the company I worked with, I need to file a Bar on Access according to thesis guidelines.” Date: 21 May 2020 Name: Martha Okello Akullo Signature: 2 Acknowledgments (if any) In the acknowledgment of the completion of this Thesis, I thank all the people who supported and guided me throughout the process of writing this paper. "First of all, I thank Frank Hendrickx, for all the advice, input, and connection he put me in touch with throughout my research period." “Secondly, I would like to thank Mirza Garcia, and Emmanuel Sesay for taking time out of their schedules to help support and advise me throughout the process of my thesis.” “Thirdly, I would like to thank Mohamed, Edu, and Daniel Talisuna for letting me interview them and gain deeper insights about their experience within academies.” “Lastly, I give a special thanks to Tarek Salame for taking time out of his work schedule to help proofread as well as advise me throughout the process of my thesis.” 3 Table of Content Declaration of Authorship 2 Acknowledgments (if any) 3 Table of Content 4 Abstract 5 Chapter 1: Introduction 7 Chapter 2: Summary of Literature Review 9 Research Topic 9 Introduction 9 Background of Uganda 9 Sports Governance in Uganda 10 The reputation of Ugandan Football 10 International influence on the idea 11 Problems with Ugandan football 12 Financial influence 13 Chapter 3: Body of Thesis 14 Description of business 14 Ownership 14 Business model 14 Mission and Vision 16 Services 17 Marketing Analysis 18 Uganda football background 18 Market Segmentation 18 Market research results summary: 19 Main Competitors 20 SWOT 21 Strategy and Implementation 21 Organizational chart 21 Management 22 Human Resources Process 22 Code of conduct 23 Admissions Process 23 Scheduling of the Academy 24 4 Value proposition 24 Marketing strategy 25 Marketing Campaign 26 Pricing strategy 27 Finance 28 Startup costs 28 Funding request 28 Income statement 29 Cash flow statement 30 Chapter 4: Findings 31 Chapter 5: Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations 34 References 35 Appendices 40 5 Abstract The purpose of this paper is to gain a brief understanding surrounding the football market within Uganda, in order to contrast a football academy to help with the overall development of youth athletes within the nation. The business plan illustrated how the academy will operate, the logistics surrounding it, how it is envisioned to look like, the pricing strategy around the academy, the marketing strategy put in place to gain exposure, and the financial projection surrounding a 5-year operational plan of the academy. The paper also takes into consideration problems surrounding the governing body of football in Uganda, as well as original market research, through interviews with market experts in Europe and Africa, giving advice and recommendation about the important aspects to take into consideration when running an academy. Additionally, to an interview with an individual who inspired this paper by the name of Daniel Talisuna. Most importantly the paper is also constructed around the opinion of the people from within Uganda, considering their interests, thought around the idea through the help of surveys conducted on both parents and students. With major findings surrounding the idea being mostly positive, with a few recommendations put in place and taken into consideration in order to make the idea more realistic and less of a dream. 6 Chapter 1: Introduction Growing up, I was one of the few talented individuals in football within my high school who never got to nurture my talent due to the lack of opportunities that are currently present in my country (see appendix graph 1.3), Uganda. It is clear that there is a lot of undiscovered talent within the nation (FIFA, 2003; Mohamed Interview, 2020), who have no potential to grow into a professional career due to the lack of organization and incompetent coaching at the youth level across the nation (FIFA, 2003), making the possibility of elite-level football for the youth near to impossible. This brought me to come up with the idea to bring the concept of academies that have been a vital part of the development of football in Europe, with top clubs throughout Europe all having academies at a lower level. Allowing for youth players such as likes of Anssumane Fati (FcBarcelona, 2020) a 16-year-old player who now plays for FC Barcelona 1st team or even Tammy Abraham (ChelseaFC, 2020), and Mason Mount (ChelseaFC, 2020) to feed their talents as players from a very young age at Chelsea FC. To ensure they had a chance to prevail into a successful career which they all kick-started in 2019 when they all made their first-team debut for their signing club in the 2019/20 season (ChelseaFc, 2020; FcBarcelona, 2020). With the knowledge I’ve been able to obtain from my bachelors in sports management and recommendations from my advisors and interviewee, I believe this can be a good business venture to start in Uganda, considering the talent and developing nature of the football market in Uganda (Mohamed Interview, 2020), alongside the lack of opportunities within the country for this young talent, and interest according to data supported in appendix graph 1.5. With this in mind, I thought it would be a good step for Uganda to introduce a high-level academy to help with the development of the nationals youth sporting talents, thus, increasing the competitive level of football for the country. Whilst also increasing the number of national players who build a successful career without the need for looking for an academy beyond the borders of their own nation. This also brings in the opportunity for the country to invest in more qualified coaches to improve the level as a whole across the board of the status of coaches around the leagues (Sport Northern Ireland, 2012). This is proven due to a model that was tested by Northern Ireland (Sport Northern, 2012) in 2010 called the SPLISS model. This shows how the investment in elite sports has gone towards the improvement of facilities and development of the nation’s national football team. This was seen in a massive improvement shown by the Northern Ireland national football team in the 2016 Euro cup when they made it all the way to the round of 16’s, the furthest they have gone in a long time. Instead of having billions unaccounted for funds being invested in the sports without any visual evidence of an improvement of the sport (Schatzberg, 2001). This will be made possible in Uganda by introducing the SPLISS model into our academy model (Sport Northern Ireland, 2012), allowing for accountability for all the areas of our academy financially. In addition, allowing for investors and our board of directors to easily allocate funds into the development of football within the academy. The introduction of this model will bring to light a new perspective of how to properly ensure that funds within our nation are not being put to waste (Sport Northern Ireland, 2012) when we present our project for approval and licensing to the government and minister of education and sports in 7 Uganda. Therefore, showing the Uganda government and head of Sports within the country that a change must be made to ensure there are visual changes within the sports industry after an investment has been made (Schatzberg, 2001). This thesis will be conducted as a business plan which will be used to answer the following question; How can we adapt an academy to help promote the development of football in Uganda and improve the recognition of upcoming athletes in the region? I will introduce innovative ideas, in order to create an ideal academy in Uganda that will help change the way in which the country approaches the development of football within the nation forever. In addition, to helping the discovery of national players within the region at an international level. Potentially helping to bridge the ever so big gap between the level of competition of African football and European football in the future (Mugenyi, 2020). This is a relevant business idea for the Ugandan sports industry, mainly because of the lack of basic knowledge, facilities, technical measures, organization, and protection of players within the league for this region (Schatzberg, 2001). An academy such as this one can be used to set the stand for the rest of the nation in terms of allocation for the proper physiotherapy, and rehabilitation methods for injured players.