Africa Needs Sports Business Pros

Renowned British sports business consultant, Mr Graham Hollins, says Africa needs trained professionals in various areas of sports business to change the face of sports on the continent and also tap into the huge resources and opportunities available for exploitation.

He made these observations at the end of the first sports sponsorship certification course organised at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel by the Ethel Jayne University College of Sports in collaboration with SportBusiness Group (UK), publishers of SportBusiness International magazine.

The three-day course was run by Mr Hollins of Spine Consulting, a former lecturer in the Sports Administration Masters course at Deakin University in Melbourne, with over 10 years experience in corporate sponsorship, rights ownership and management.

CAF Communications Director and FIFA Instructor, Mr Suleman Habuba, was another resource person who held training sessions on the principles of football club management, structure and administration of a club, and a study of model professional clubs like South Africa’s Kaizer Chiefs and Al Ahly of Egypt.

Participants in the course included professionals in sport media, members from the Ghana Polytechnic Sports Association, Security Services Sports Association, sports agencies, football administrators, and major corporate sponsors like MTN and Africa Online, and an official of the Sierra Leone Weightlifters Association.

With enormous commercial marketing experience developed with blue chip companies, including Unilever, L'Oreal and GlaxoSmithKline, Mr Hollins brought an engaging and energetic approach to bear on the MBA-style learning sessions which equipped participants with the skills required to build a comprehensive sponsorship programme.

The curriculum incorporated in-depth understanding of the legal side of sponsorship to identifying potential sponsors, pitching, negotiating, activating and evaluating, as well as warding off ambush marketing.

Using the SportBusiness Group’s Campus Learning curriculum, Mr Graham took participants through many case studies on sports sponsorship best practices, offering practical solutions on how to package sports properties in Ghana to potential sponsors and how to activate such sponsorships to derive maximum benefits.

At the closing ceremony, Mr Magnus Rex Danquah, President of Ethel-Jane University, noted with satisfaction the completion of a revolutionary course that would help set new standards for sports in Ghana and Africa as a whole.

“Sports business is an emerging industry with a strong financial base and if we do it well there will be integrated business for professionals in various fields.

“There is a lot more business in sports than we can imagine,” he said.

He announced that beginning next year the Faculty of Sports Business of the university will begin full-time certification, degree and post-graduate programmes in such courses as Sports Tourism Management, Sports Events Planning, Sports Events Safety and Security, Sports Facility Management, Sports Facility Planning, among others.