As the UAE Football League gears up for its third professional season, Abu Dhabi’s Al Jazira are looking to improve on consecutive second place finishes and go one better this time around.
It’s no small feat of course: Scottish marketing maestro Phil Anderton is the man tasked with spearheading the charge, whilst simultaneously raising the profile of the local club.
After highly successful spells with the Scottish Rugby Union and the ATP World Tour, sandwiching a seven-month stint at Scottish football club Hearts before he fell out with owner Vladimir Romanov, Anderton joined Al Jazira at the beginning of the year as chief executive and certainly has the experience and know-how to make a significant impact.
But why would the former global ambassador for Coca-Cola choose to leave one of the top jobs in World sport and come to Abu Dhabi?
Anderton explains: “I got a call to come over and meet with the people from Al Jazira and I was already aware of Abu Dhabi’s development over the last couple of years as a big area for sport. As soon as I heard they were owned by HH Sheikh Mansour I realised this was something very serious and I thought the challenge of trying to build something from the ground up was too good to turn down.”
Founded in 1974 as the result of the merger of two other clubs, Al Jazira is based at the 40,000-capacity Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium. Filling the stadium more often will be one of Anderton's key tasks, and something that he has first-hand experience of after his time at Hearts.
“One of the areas that we’re trying to develop is the fan base. Back in the UK there’s so much more history and tradition in football, going to matches is much more popular and that’s one of the main things we need to address,” he says.
“We’ve done the research to understand why we aren’t getting the attendance – there isn’t just one reason, there’s a whole host of them. There’s the misconception that the football is poor quality and it’s for Emiratis only, people don’t know where to go to the stadium, don’t think there’s enough parking and there’s limited food and beverage options.
“What it really comes down to is giving people reasons to come, reaching them and engaging them so they’re aware of what’s happening when and where – this is why we need to be much more pro-active with the media. Then when they do come here we need to make sure the football on the field is attractive, but also all the things that you’d expect at a top football match are provided – from food and beverages to match-day entertainment. That’s how we’re going to approach it.”
This is an area that Anderton clearly knows plenty about – he earned the nickname "Firework Phil" while working for the Scottish Rugby Union due to the lavish firework displays and entertainment he put on before games at Murrayfield, the home of the SRU.
Another thing Anderton wants to take advantage of is the obvious links with Manchester City, also owned by HH Sheikh Mansour. The club is looking at numerous ways to do this, including offering all fans who come to watch Al Jazira the chance to enter a draw to win an all-expenses-paid trip of a lifetime to watch City play in Manchester.
One of Anderton’s other priorities is to develop the playing and coaching staff while providing attractive football in the process – and again he has a clear plan laid out of how to do this. A lot of Pro League clubs are investing in expensive foreign imports – just look up the road to Dubai’s Al Ahli, who have brought in former World player of the year Fabio Cannavaro and ex-Leeds and Aston Villa boss David O’Leary. Al Jazira are veering away from this strategy completely and have even farmed out their two record signings from the last two seasons (Ricardo Oliveira and Rafael Sobis) on loan deals to clubs in Brazil.
“We believe we’ve got a very good nucleus of young, talented local players that we want to develop. We will bring in a couple of foreign players but we will choose carefully to make sure they complement the existing squad. We certainly don’t want to fall into the mindset that we will succeed if we have good foreign players and fail if we don’t.”
“The second thing we want to do is look after our players. There’s no point paying good money for our players if they’re not fit to play, which is why we’re delighted we’ve been able to appoint Dr Mark Waller (the former Liverpool club doctor) as medical services director,” says Anderton with a smile.
Speaking about the forthcoming season, Anderton says the goals for the team are simple. “We want to win every competition we enter: we’ve been bridesmaid too many times. We know it’s not going to be easy, there are a lot of really good teams out there, but that’s what we’ve got to aim for.”
So there’s obviously plenty of hard work still to be done, but given his previous achievements, it would be unwise to bet against the Scot coming up trumps again.
