Josoor Institute today facilitated a day-long master class for the clubs and management of the Qatar Stars League at the Torch hotel in Doha. Delegates from the Qatar Stars League and club representatives attended the event to gain practical, hands-on experience and guidance from Everton Football Club (FC)’s community engagement team on developing a fan base, building a strong presence in the community and how to establish a successful club brand.
Robert Elstone, CEO, Everton FC was joined by Dr. Denise Barrett-Baxendale, Everton in the Community Chief Executive Officer and Deputy Chief Executive of Everton FC and Ryan Bowd, Director of Education at Josoor Institute to deliver the master classes. Sessions covered the key principles of effective community engagement, guidelines on how to run a ‘community club’, building great fan experiences before, during and after match day, effective marketing strategies and a case study on Everton FC’s ‘super community project’.
Everton FC is one of the most successful clubs in the English Premier League at establishing a strong and sustainable culture of engagement with fans and is widely recognised as a model of how to work in the community. Its players put in among the most hours of charity work of all English clubs, its community programme has received a national award and it has one of the strongest fan bases in the Premier League.
Khalifa Saleh Al Haroon, Executive Director of Marketing and Communications at the Qatar Stars League commented on the occasion, “Qatar Stars League invests in extensive community outreach activities across Qatar that aim to engage the local community in football through fun and entertaining ways. Gaining valuable insight into how we can best leverage these opportunities so more people fall in love with the game and get behind our local teams was a truly inspiring opportunity. We look forward to implementing what we’ve learned so that our outreach programmes impact the lives of as many people as possible.”
This marked the second visit by CEO Robert Elstone in recent months after he participated in a course titled ‘Business of Football’ organised by Josoor Institute in October. Commenting on participation in the master class, Robert Elstone, CEO at Everton FC said, “As part of our model, our community engagement team aims to use the power of sport to motivate, educate and inspire people in local communities. We hope the information we have shared with participants from the Qatar Stars League enables them to engage effectively with their communities through a variety of initiatives ranging from a focus on health & wellbeing, youth engagement, fundraising, sport development and employment to education and training.”
Mushtaq Al-Waeli, Executive Director (acting) for Josoor Institute, highlighted the importance of the master class and said, “As we celebrate our first year of operations, completing this one day master class is extremely significant for us. In many ways it represents the best of Josoor Institute and our role in bringing together international expertise with local, professional talent to produce successful sporting events both here in Qatar and around the Middle East and North Africa region. With our courses attended by more than 800 delegates from the sport and events industries in Qatar and the MENA region during this past year, we’re extremely pleased with the progress we and our institutional partners have made.”
Josoor Institute’s Club Community Engagement master class is designed to support the success of forthcoming major events organised by the Qatar Stars League. The master classes will bring international clubs to the country to share their expertise and provide platforms for professionals working in club management in Qatar to learn from global standards of best practice.
This master class is the second bespoke course that Josoor Institute has organised for the Qatar Stars League. A previous one-day workshop was conducted exclusively for the players and management for the Qatar Stars League in March 2014. The course was titled ‘working with the media’ and focused on familiarising the players with the media landscape.
