There’s a version of this article where I tell you that Dubai changed everything.

That I arrived in the UAE, saw Football through fresh eyes, and unlocked some profound insight about how the Game is really run.

That’s not quite the truth.

The truth is more uncomfortable.

My Journey: It Started in Portugal

Before Dubai, I had my history.
Years and years of Playing, from Portugal National Youth Teams, FC Porto to 3rd Division in Portugal.

Then, years and years of Studying the Game, and Coaching.

Some experiences in Scouting, from helping agencies and Clubs to Developing a full Scouting Department at a specific Club.

Always getting more responsibilities.

It all started at a Club affiliated with the Sporting CP Academy network, and from then we went to open a new branch, closer to Lisbon.

But, the destiny wanted that my last experience of almost 2 years in Portugal, before returning to the UAE, was at the same Club. A Club with relative regional history and leverage, with some traits of what one could assume as Identity, with the Structural advantages that come from Operating for many years inside one of European Football’s most respected Development Systems.

However, now, the reality was different, and that was also a Club in decline.

Registrations was falling for years. And with numbers shrinking, so was attendance, enthusiasm, Parents satisfaction levels and, consequently, Players development. 

The culture had drifted. 

And when I walked in, the infrastructure was very much the same as it was 10 years before, but the intention was missing.

In 12 months, we grew from around 170 registered athletes to 270, defining the foundations to comeback to have more than 300 I was used to.

That was my benchmark, the 10/12 years before, when I was simply an intern Coach, a fresh student.

At the same time, we won the U14 and U17 titles, and got Promoted to the Regional Top Divisions.

I was asked many times: what changed?

Not the Structure, for sure. 

The Structure was always there, one of the oldest Sporting CP partners in the whole country, a Partnership reaching 15 years.

My answer was always the same: the Processes and the intentions. Those two crucial elements changed dramatically, and those feed the Culture in a different direction. 

We weren’t there to be known as a Sporting CP Partner alone. We were there to compete and (re)gain the capacity to develop Players with clear Values, Vision and Objectives.

Someone decided to treat Governance as a daily practice, making sure things were done correctly, with intention.

Then I Went to Dubai

This wasn’t a sudden move, it was planned.

Additionally, it wasn’t my first move to the country, this was the third time.

However, always when you move to an Emerging Football Market, the first thing you notice is the absence.

Absence of Governance.

In the Private sector, there’s no Federation scaffolding to lean on. 

No century of Club tradition embedding your Principles of Play before you’ve even introduced yourself. 

No Legal Structure protecting your Academy’s Identity from the Organization around it.

In the UAE, one builds everything deliberately.

That self-explains why you have more than 250 Private Academies in Dubai.

On the other side, in the UAE there are things way more developed that in other markets, namely in Portugal: Safety documentation at local Schools. 

From Normal Operating Procedures, Emergency Action Plans, Risk Assessments, they are living Documents, because if something goes wrong, there’s no Institutional memory to fall back on. 

There’s only what you built.

As Private Schools and Football Academies work together, every details is planned accordingly.

Just as Player Development Pathways, that don’t exist because the Market expects them. 

One must design them, articulate them, and then sell them to Families and Players who have no reason to trust you yet.

Here, Compliance also defines your Credibility in the market.

We recently grew from under 40 athletes to now more than 300 athletes impacted with our Sessions.

And Processes played a significant role, because when you have no Structure to inherit (ie. International Branch with defined Vision, Mission, Objectives, and Methodology, Learning Systems, Sessions, etc), you become ruthlessly intentional about the Structure you pretend to build.

What Europe Gets Wrong About Its Own Advantages

Here’s the uncomfortable part.

Europe has extraordinary Structural advantages in Football.

Besides that, in comparison with emergent Markets as in the Gulf, there’s another competitive advantage: time.

Time means more than Experience. It also means, more stories, more defeats, more winnings, more studies, benchmarks, expectations and deliveries.

And if there’s something we can’t learn immediately, is Experience.

Then, Europe also has:

• Robust federations. 
• Legal frameworks that protect Clubs and Athletes: Clubs Certification Grades, SADs, SDUQs, the entire Architecture of Professional Football Governance that took decades to build. And to make mistakes upon. 
• Academy Methodologies Developed and refined across Generations of Practitioners.

But, as anything in life, advantages only compound when you use them deliberately, intentionally.

What I saw, in Portugal (before Dubai) was a series of Clubs that had every Structural advantage available to it, and had stopped seeing those advantages at all.

That’s what happens when Governance becomes wallpaper.

The easiest way is to blame the money.

Or the lack of it.

I will give you a few examples, very familiar to those involved in the Clubs’ Certification in Portugal (similar to the Academies Tiers in The Premier League, UK):

• When Compliance is something you do because you have to, not because you understand what it’s protecting, or how your Club will develop based on that.
• Or, when the Federation exists in the background and no one in the building of Clubs’ Methodology and Governance knows how to leverage it.
• Or, When your Development Pathway is a PDF on a shelf rather than a living Conversation that the Club holds consistently, with every Player, every Family, every Coach on the Staff.

The Structure doesn’t fail the Club. 

The Club fails (deeply) to activate it.

The Synthesis

I’ve now operated on both sides of this equation.

In Portugal: inside a traditional European Structure, at different Clubs that had forgotten how to use it.

Then, in the UAE, where even without that Structure to lean on, we are forced to build from first Principles every single day.

What I know now that I didn’t know before:

• Governance isn’t a constraint, just as Theory isn’t something superfluous. It’s a Competitive advantage, but only if you treat it like one.
• The Clubs that will win the next decade are the ones where someone inside the Club understands that the Federation, the Legal Structure, the Development Pathway, the Safety Documentation (all of it, and all the others) is raw and living material that has to be activated, deliberately, and revisited regularly. Not when the Certification Authority is coming to Evaluate.

Emerging Markets taught me that lesson by removing the safety net.

Europe handed me the safety net, and the lesson was learning to use it as a starting point.

The best Sporting Directors don’t operate on autopilot inside their Structural Advantages. 

They see those advantages clearly, because they’ve built without them.

A Club without an organized Scouting Reporting System, a defined Network and Target Markets. Or, simply be defining a Game Model and Players’ Profiles that bring to life the Vision and Objectives of the Club.

Or, by creating a clear Organizational Chart, a Chain of Reporting Commands and Guidelines to all Departments, improving internal Communications and Governance.

These are simple examples where they act from day one.

Have you ever had to build something from zero? 

What did it teach you about what you were taking for granted?

Maybe we can find similar grounds, and help others!