Pablo Longoria, Marseille President: ‘Rebuilding a European Football Giant’ (Ep.90)

0:00I have a theory that football is like a building. You are first floor, second floor, third floor. So if you are in seventh floor, you cannot take a player that is in the second floor because the gap is so big. If Erling Haaland is Erling Haaland right now, it's because he took very good steps. Molde, Salzburg, Dortmund, City. Wow. They are the right step each time. I made the mistake on not taking the players from the right floor in the building. It's a huge mistake. I'm going against my conditions. One of the sentences that we said between us, Let's concentrate ourselves in the things you can control.

0:34I will put an example that it was Rabiot's case, that it was so much controversial. During the summer, you have your best player and you have to take a decision of putting him in the transfer market for what happened inside the dressing room. But we were taking this decision because we thought that it was the most important one for a group in the long term. It was not the most popular in the short term. Hello and welcome to The Business of Sport, the show that takes you behind the scenes with the industry's leading owners, operators and athletes. Today, we're delighted to welcome Pablo Longoria to the show.

1:06Pablo is the president of French football giant Marseille, marking a welcome venture for us into European football. Make no mistake, this is a huge club steeped in history, the most passionate fans and the global brand. Managing all of this from a business perspective is a serious job. Then, of course, add into it the need to create a winning team on the pitch to drive it all, and that is the challenge that faces Pablo. From scout and technical director to club president, his route to the top is unique in itself. The approach is absolutely results first. They have compiled a squad with a strong balance of youth and experience, including former Premier League players such as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Pierre-Emile Hoiberg and of course Mason Greenwood, whose controversial transfer is covered in the chat as we look at how Marseille are approaching the transfer market more broadly.

1:55The broader challenges for the club extend into the chaotic media landscape of French football and the challenge with competing against the biggest and established leagues with less financial clout. Deep insight into top-level football is not abundant. This is a fascinating reveal on what it takes to run one of European football's most iconic organisations. We're delighted to welcome Pablo to the business of sport. For years, protein bars have been the go-to snack for a quick protein boost. but finding one that truly delivers without adding excess calories and sugar has been a challenge. Most bars offer around 20 grams of protein but often pack in 350 calories or more along with a hefty amount of sugar.

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4:45Pablo, it's so great to have you in the studio. Thank you so much for joining us first. It's my pleasure to be here having a good conversation, thinking about different topics right now in the industry as well coming from the investment world. For me, it's fascinating. So it's a good chat. So much for us to cover. The first thing that we must cover, because we speak to a lot of football executives and we get a lot of questions about how to get into the world of being a football executive. Yours is so unique because you've sat on both the performance side and now sit on the business side so for those that don't know can you give a bit of context to how you got into sport and i know that's a long answer for you well it's a long answer and i'm very young but at the same time when i'm feeling it in the industry well it's 20 years that i'm in the in the industry now i wanted to be journalist sincerely because it was the easiest way to be close to football because i wanted to to work in the football industry.

5:43But at the same time, it was so much complicated. And I said, well, maybe the easiest way it can be to collaborate with an agent in my city and then going into the vertical of scouting world. At that time, I started to work in a first division club in Spain, Regretivo de Huelva, at that time. And after that, he was so innovative at that time. this agent Eugenio Bottas, a Spanish one, created a scouting platform for the clubs to give in some kind of outsourcing the scouting at that time. So this time I collaborated with different clubs until the moment that Recreativo Welba gave me the opportunity of being chief scout.

6:26Then traveling to Italy to make my career, my Italian career, first as a scout, secondary as a chief scout in Sassuolo, Juventus. then sporting director Valencia coming back to Spain. I'm feeling 10 years ago it was the natural step you know that coming from the scouting world and scouting players recruitment etc. The next step can be directly to be a sporting director you know because just ago financial control it was not so tough as right now. Deals were simpler let's say like this and you were concentrated more in a short-term basis than building a project or having a different kind of strategic approach.

7:15So right now I think that for being a football director it's completely different than thinking about being a football director 10 years ago. Being a scout and part of then that performance set up at Juventus, a club with obviously so much history and power and clout, that must have been a very cool position to hold? Since at that time, it was amazing for two things. First of all, because we were some kind of innovative team in Italy because we were creating strategic plans for three years, for five years or so, even that, and creating some kind of innovation into the scouting and how to do a right methodology, supported always by Fabio Paratici at that time.

8:01and for me you know that I liked to travel I loved traveling around going into different stadiums etc it was well I remember a sentence in my first year in Juventus you know I'm like I'm in Disney World you know. So how does Marseille come about then? First of all my dream was always to have a possibility to walk in the top five leagues so for me it was interesting to go into France because saying, okay, I've walked for a short period of time in England, Italy, Spain. Well, right now, let's do France, especially for having, you know, different kind of cultures and how the sporting or football world is approached by different countries, by different cultures.

8:49This is something that it was stimulating me so high. Also, the possibility to play Champions League. That was a huge leverage for that decision. And the last one I wanted after my experience in Valencia where we qualified twice for Champions League. We won the cup. We played semifinal in Europa League. And after that we were sacked by the ownership. I needed to find the passion. and to find back the passion for football there's no place better to have patience in Europe than the Marseille so it was like the perfect fit. How did it feel getting sacked having done such good work? It's complicated to accept you know because for me in football you have a rule that is the rule that is fixing your your week you are winning you are safe you are losing you start to have troubles you know and is the right pressure because you want to win because you don't want to have you know to be at risk this is boring mentality at the moment that you are winning you are not you are not expecting to be to be out and this it was very hard to accept so you go into marseille football is results driven business we always know this it's the biggest challenge when trying to find the ways to build and develop things longer term but also keep everything moving on the pitch.

10:20How was the team when you found it, when you walked in? What were the biggest things that you had to deal with? First of all, it was, you know, it was a tough time, especially about COVID, especially for a club that you have a massive stadium, 67 key stadium. So you are depending so much on your stadium performance. So it was super challenging on how to start to transform the roster through a change of the model in the French League. Then it has been so much challenging about all the changes in the French landscape, etc. But the most important thing was how to find sporting performance short term, let's say like this, because after that you can create all the rest of the verticals.

11:12that is a commercial one, a stadium, and trying to attire the local community to be back into the stadium. That was the first thing that we were looking for. It was how to put back the people in the stadium to have a sold-out stadium and to create this kind of connection between your fans and people wishing to go, to come to the stadium all the time, you know. 67 ,000, like what are the revenues per game? and as a portion of your total revenue, is ticket sales enormous? Yes, it's enormous. As a vertical, let's say like this, out of player trading in our fixed revenues, playing Champions League, playing Champions League, can be around 30 % of our revenues.

12:03That's much higher than other teams, no? Yeah, especially because you don't have media right that is balancing. Which has also moved it much higher as a percentage. Exactly. But at the same time, you know, for us, having this stadium is a competitive advantage. It's true that obviously you have to have into consideration different factors like the OPEX around the stadium that is not, let's say, like this cheap in comparison with other countries. Is it more expensive to run the stadium than other countries? That depends on each country. For example, in Spain, you have 50 years' rental for one euro in different clubs.

12:47You have the state that is covering the expenses about police and security out of the stadium. And you have completely different models, like in Italy, that, for example, is a mixed system, or Germany that is completely different. for us as the stadium is owned by municipality. We are paying an annual rent. We are paying massive security expenses because for us, obviously, we think that we need to have the best experience for our fans as possible. How much does it cost security for a game? Ballpark. Important games, you can go around more than 500k. 500k on security in the important games yeah do you think a lot about f &b like food and beverage it's a a lot yes and right now we are thinking about it from a strategic perspective because we have also the particularity of having a stadium downtown so finally we are not recovering all the euros on F &B because a lot of you know there are a lot of bars there are a lot of restaurants around the stadium etc etc so in this way there is also a big challenge on how to the maximum respecting everybody or because obviously downtown you are creating value as well for your city but it's true that it's super challenging as well increasing F &B if you have a stadium downtown you know yeah that's super hard and you want the community to win as well from games being hosted there and pubs and bars and everything but you want as much of the wallet of the consumer as possible absolutely and there's no a big tradition of consuming inside the stadium in marseille as it's a sunny city you know you have a good weather during all the year people love to be in the street people is consuming in the street they love to stay i don't know one hour before the kickoff, being outside and being in community.

14:54So super challenging. Is every game sold out? Since two years and a half, yes. If you increased it to 80 ,000, could you sell out? Like, why don't you increase supply? It's always a good question. But, you know, in Mase, you need to keep always a balance between the popular component because you have one of the poorest, let's say, like these areas in Europe. Yeah. And there's a city with a big level of social economic difference, you know? And there's a particularity in your city that you have to respect. And I like to respect it because for us, Olympic Marseille and football in Marseille is so much popular that we are offering to our fans 26 key tickets that is almost an average of 12 euros per game if we are counting Champions League and League One and Domestic League so we are proud as well of keeping that level of popularity because this is creating your DNA 12 euros a ticket that's incredible and if you are taking the season ticket season ticket card yeah that's amazing when up your ticket prices mate up and no but again you've just described why you don't right because you've got one of the poorest areas and that feeds into the fan base so yeah but if you do then you don't sell out your stadium you don't have the atmosphere that you actually that's interesting if you increase prices would you still sell out i i think you would yes you just take consumer money but you are renouncing to your dna so the strategy is not how to increase it all the stadium is how to create a segmentation where you can let's say like this doing an optimization of your stadium keeping your dna this is uh this always a very strategic conversation and this is why we are working a lot on thinking about what are the different offers in hospitality where the different segmentation in the stadium where everybody can find them their place in the stadium you know totally because if you do one of the best things about marcia you go the velodrome or you see the velodrome the atmosphere right that is created is incredible the intensity of the fans that builds what you see clubs going there on european nights chelsea is often hailed as having a terrible atmosphere do you think if chelsea ticket prices were cheaper and made available to a wider demographic of people it would be a better atmosphere yeah interesting but you know for example stamford bridge is a good example you have one and a half stands that have what i would call is i don't mean proper fans but let's say fans that would go every single week then you have to the two side stands which are priced much higher they are where a lot of the corporates sit there was 4.2 we got offered tickets to sit in this new stand it's not hospitality it's just better access to food and beverage it was 4.2k per ticket.

17:54Wow. You know, it's something, in my opinion, sincerely, and this is something that I am always thinking about it. Obviously, we as clubs, this is your intention. You need to have better commercial revenues, better revenues coming from ticketing. You need to maximize everything. It is normal because finally you are doing the natural allocation to buy better players and you are creating more expectation, more people coming to the stadium. But at the same time, I think that we in football, we need always to think about how to keep the principles of football. And for me, the principles of football is that this is a popular sport.

18:39You need to have your core fan base going always to the stadium. At the same time, yes, from the other side, you need to see, OK, what is the best economic models coming from my stadium. For me, one main answer can be to have a stadium that is working each day in the year. This is something that is quite important. What do you make of the rise of like multi-purpose where you see Tottenham having events, NFL? How do you feel about multi-purpose and is that something that you think every team will need to adopt to maximize revenues? Absolutely, yes. And this is something that is very related to the technology of the pitch because especially you need to...

19:20Everything depends on the quality of your pitch and what is the technology to keep us safe and obviously to play in the best conditions your pitch. For me, it's everything about this. How much do you invest in your pitch? The last year we invested 1.5 million in maintenance of the pitch. I'm sorry for being naive again. Is that a lot compared to other teams? No, it's in the average, especially because right now between... And I'm taking into consideration changing the pitch because for us, we have a strong summer concert tour. So we are trying to optimize through three weeks in the summer to organize as maximum as concerts as we can.

20:03So you have to change the pitch. And as well, you need to maintain it during all the years with all the different products, etc. because finally the quality of your spectacle depends right now in football a lot in the quality of your of your pitch how important has winning been and performance on the pitch how important has that been based on the business that you're able to generate off it and i use the example of man united for for example who have been far below the standards expected of them for many years but their performance in a corporate level on a business level has still been very strong Each club has a particular model, that's for sure.

20:43But for me, sporting results is the core of everything, you know, because I'm not feeling that you can have commercial impact without sporting performances. People are not wishing to come to the stadium to see a team that is not performing in the pitch. So for me, this is about everything. And you are, because it's what I'm mentioning always, you know, when you are asking what is the most important thing in a football club and a lot of people can answer okay it's the stadium is a commercial is revenue i don't know it's branding win next game because if you are winning you can continue creating commercial revenue people coming to the stadium this is the core you need to win you have to win you have to keep the best performance in the pitch as you can and you are respecting from your fans.

21:37And putting everybody in the track of the most important thing, the players, because they are the main actors, is winning the game and we need to do everything from all the different departments to allow the team to perform in the best conditions. This is something that nowadays in 2025 is so much challenging. Do you get involved in the process of bringing players to the clubs? How do you approach that side of it? Right now, I'm trying to delegate it as much as I can, especially because we have, right now, a very good football director who's working very well with the coach, Medivinatia and Roberto de Cervi.

22:17So at that time, for me, it's more a strategic supervision of the processes and intervening in negotiations So, especially in the most critical ones, trying to go a little bit to the action in final part of the negotiation. And I'm seeing more my position like, you know, a steward of the strategy. De Zerbi was a brilliant hire for you, I'd imagine. You must have been delighted to get him in at a time where his stock was so high from his time in England. So much energy consuming that process, sincerely. How was that process? How did it come to be? Since the league, that was something that was curious because I received.

23:02We were looking for a coach after a very difficult season. Yeah, we played semifinals in Europa League against Atalanta. We lost semifinals, but we ended the league in eighth position. That is something that is not acceptable in Marseille. so we were knowing that since February that we have to look for a new coach, right? Different coaches said no before the semifinal of Europa League but at the same time a friend called me when we were a little bit doubting the process and he said to me, listen, that next week Roberto de Zerbi, maybe he will leave Brighton but don't tell anyone, obviously. 10 seconds after I was calling Roberto Seguin.

23:50As we were discussing in the past, before he moved to Brighton, he was an option. And what did you say to him? Hey, I'm just thinking about you by chance. No, I was saying, okay, and I know that for Roberto, it can be interesting because when we played Olympic Marseille, Brighton, he said in the press conference, that it's a stadium I love, this club I really like blah blah blah because it's you know something that I feel identified with it with the club I said I know that it's complicated we're not playing a European competition next year I think it's something that it will be impossible I know what you are doing with Brighton so let's have a chat with the with the coach because I want to explain to him the ideas we would like to have at the same time my football director was speaking directly as well with the with the coach but at that time you know it was more about personal and human relationships that rational decision for every one of us i think people look at managers and think they manage the team they do all the buying they do all the selling they do all the reason what did people get most wrong about what a football manager does i think it's changing completely you know and it's about the different countries, especially because I think that here in England, the people think that the coach and the manager is doing so much more things than he is doing right now.

25:21In reality, I think in the south of Europe, we are putting inside the job description, if we can tell like this, more of the coach's skills that is managing the team in the day-to-day. He's the boss of what's happening inside the pitch. But finally, for example, that depends on the agreements you have morally with your coach. For example, our agreement with Roberto was that no player can come to the team without your consensus. Is that normal? That depends on the way you want to manage your coach. Obviously, having a super talented coach and one of the best coaches in Europe, you need to do that concession that for me is not a concession let's say like this especially because if you have a coach with a very strong methodology and very identified style finally you need to adapt to to him and giving him the best tools to play under the methodology if you are you know was it allegory when you were at juventus yeah was that the same type of conversation?

26:32Does he want to have that level of control or are some far less concerned and far more happy to coach? No, I don't think that Roberto wants to have the control. It's more the way we want to work together because we are trying to create some kind of consensus and super alignment between the key actors in the club. This is the way I'm approaching it. With Max, it's completely different because, yes, he was demanding us. All the coaches, You need to have the best players as you can. But Max was someone that he was giving a lot of confidence to the sporting department of the players arriving, especially because for Max, his methodology about football is about having very clear, let's say like this level of players and talented players and creativity in the different positions with different skills.

27:29So he was giving a lot of confidence to the sporting department. So does Roberto come to you and go, Pablo, I want this player. Go and get me this player. Would he do that with you? He can because we are speaking all the days and my football director and Roberto, they are speaking until two o 'clock in the night all the day. So in that way, this day-to-day conversation, what I'm trying to fix in all these, you know, different kind of balance of relationships is more what are the limits for the different positions what is the budget, what is the financial planning, what is the strategy as well, because I think that we need to speak about the strategy.

28:09So finally, it's more not an organized, okay, weekly meeting for the market. No, it's a day-to-day conversation. This, yes. This, no. Pablo, do an effort here. Okay, if you are doing an effort here, you need to have another strategy in that position or in that one. So it's more like, you know, working in normal conditions. You know, I think we are so much processes right now in the society. But if you have a normal relationship, an open relationship with everybody, you know, it's easy. Football director versus manager. How do you separate those roles? Manager manages everything on the pitch inside the team.

28:49What does the football director actually do or the technical director? I'm doing it something like it's not the pitch, just the pitch on obviously all the tactical decisions, who's playing, who's not playing, etc. It's more dressing room. I think the coach has to be the boss of the dressing room and controlling all the internal relationships there. And he needs to keep that kind of leadership through the group and his position in your football director in another perspective where everybody they feel okay he's the steward coming from the club because he has the strategy and he has the leverage as well into the critical decisions is how to put different levels without the legitimization the leadership of the coach inside the dressing room so this would naturally take us down the financial rabbit hole that we'll eventually get to but on transfer market how has it been when you're operating now in a european transfer market where we've seen just crazy fees go up the numbers that you need to be able to have to spend on players is so high not just on salaries and sorry not just on signing on fees but salaries as well how have you managed that how have you dealt with that as we've seen this overall market inflation and the players that you're able to go out and target and hopefully bring to the club stayed there last month and a half thinking about this whistle how to be competitive because you have huge distance with Premier League you have distance with the top European clubs coming from our perspective perspective that you know you are one year in and Champions League when you're out first of all is okay being all the years in Champions League that's my answer number one second answer is going to the market positions where the others they are not going this is what we are trying to to analyze especially because you if you are going where everybody is going you are paying the inflation you know and you're paying a very saturated market where do you think value is where others are not going especially for me is by age group because right now football with a new investment coming into football everybody is going okay I will buy a player with 21 years old because I think he will play with me he will take some value so finally I'm creating value so I'm getting financial financial result and I'm getting cash I'm getting financial results so everybody's playing right now this game that I fully understand and it's especially because one of the main verticals in football is player training, of course.

31:38But at the same time, it's creating an overinflation in this particular age group where everybody's going as a strategy that I'm thinking about how to be competitive, not touching this overinflated... So what does that mean? You go earlier? Earlier or later. So let's say, let's use Hojbjerg, right? You have a player, you're playing for Spurs, very competitive in the Premier League. What's your cell of Marseille? How do you position the club to a player like that where you go, this is the place you have to come to. This is why we're different. Two things. Especially because I think when you are getting into maturity in your career, you want to play Champions League every year.

32:21That's point number one in a player like Pierre. So we were selling a project, first of all, about passion, about loving for football, about being in a different environment, trying to play Champions League each season. So at that time, when you are getting mature in your career, you are looking for not only for a career plan, I'm going to England and I'm developing myself. After that, you are thinking about, okay, how to be stable at the top level, how to feel about emotions, how to feel that I'm important in a project. He has a natural leadership, Pierre, for example. In that time, I think that matched automatically with the MBS, especially because he speaks French.

33:12And as well, he played with our football director, Medivin Atia, in Bayern. So it was like, okay, it's the perfect mix. And at the same time, you know, you are going to a phase in the market by age where nobody, they are going to invest in players, in uh pierre is in 95 so we invested on him when he had 29 years old but but inherently with that i get you but it's a bit like buying a car at the kind of uh 75 of life zone where it's like sure but like the real set resale value on that is like do you worry about that not for a reason because i want to assure the sporting result come and work at chelsea please it's so you're like i'll buy you a bit cheaper because people don't want to pay that much for a 29 year old or a 20 30 year old um and i'm happy to have a hit on the resale value and we'll sell them to some no i will continue to depreciate from a financial perspective the value i'm taking is not about the transfer of the player it's about his performance and his stability that it will help me to have maybe younger players to play close to him and learn from him.

34:30So it's not just about his sale value, right? Basically, if he gets you into the Champions League as well, he's repaid his transfer fee like that based on his performances. You could say exactly the same about an Aubameyang, right? Aubameyang scores the goals for you that you suddenly get into a much stronger position. Even though he's very old, you're not getting a value at the end of it. No, let's say like this. This is a strategic conversation we had during this summer with Aubameyang. It's a question. Do you prefer to invest, I don't know, 50 million euros, one five or 20 million euros in capex for a 23-year-old striker?

35:02Or do you prefer to have Aubameyang with his level for free? We were thinking, okay, let's do no capex for Aubameyang, paying his salary. He knows the club. He's a player that he was also very fit in Saudi Arabia. So I prefer to have this sporting performance that taking a risk on the player that he has to adapt. I have to create value with him, etc. But as well in that position that we have Aubameyang, Wee, who is a 2000-born player, but we have Robinio Bass that is a 2007 who's playing behind them. And at that time, Robinio Bass is performing right now because he feels stable, maybe for having Aubameyang who is taking all the pressure.

35:46And Wee, that last season, he was very good. and right now he's playing well for us. You know, he's taking out all the pressure for the kid. So when you have an Aubameyang for free, do you then have a signing on fee that makes him want to join you and then a higher salary? And you can factor that in because you're getting him for free. That depends on the age. In this case, it was not the case because he was expecting and wishing to go back to Marseille. But in other players that you are signing for free, yes, there's a signing fee. but finally you know you need to compensate everything because for me signing fee and salary it's the same thing it's except one's paid in a lump sum and one's not no finally you have to pay it and you have to pay taxes about it so finally for me it's like salary you know you have to pay higher salary for a player that is coming for free you said about like finding value where others don't i love that and i love this discussion one that is finding value where others don't is is mason like how did you think about that one because it's a controversial decision because he's obviously a great talent but it is also controversial finding value where others aren't obviously that that takes into different question now and it's about let's say like this no are you taking the right decision and sincerely at that moment i needed to take the right decision from my perspective also, what are the values of your club?

37:15This is point number one, because we are doing football with values and I would like to sleep all the nights. So in that way, sincerely, we made a deep taking of information coming from the different clubs he played about what was the situation, what happened, etc. and saying, okay, am I feeling comfortable as leading this club with the information I have? And my answer was yes, absolutely, at the moment that you have all the information. So at that time, you are taking an advantage of a situation in the market because you know that he's super talented, that he's playing for you, and you are having this possibility for a circumstance that happened in the past.

38:03At the moment that you are thinking that you are taking the right decision, this one okay let's do it did you all agree it was uh individual disagreement in the table only only one only one person but finally you know at the moment that the decision is taken second part then once you do get that and you and you have that how important is it to then figure out how to make the best level of communications with everyone outside the room so that you can put across the work that you've done? And do you take the approach of we need to do this or do you take the approach of, nope, we're going to do it and it doesn't matter what other people think?