Editor’s note: The author co-wrote this piece with his son Kael
Our Osasuna experience was like no other. But what made it even more thrilling was that we were able to learn so much about the club's structure. It gave us a clear picture of how clubs usually run their affairs, and it showed that Osasuna had their very own approach.
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Osasuna is more than just football. It’s an embodiment of the entire province.
The club illustrated to their fans that they are the priority. Instead of selling selected season passes, which would give them more flexibility in terms of marketing the “big games” they will have against the giants of the league like Barcelona and Real Madrid, which would surely command a higher ticket price, Osasuna showed that their fans are number one by giving out more season passes.
This showed that they weren’t all about making a profit, but they showed that they valued their fans above everything else.
Here’s Part Two of our interview with CA Osasuna’s Head of International Development, Luis Arregui.
Kael: Can you explain the structure of Osasuna?
Luis: “More on the structure is our foundation, as we are a members club, when we gain all the money after the fiscal year we reinvest it back into the club and the community. We have more than 60 types of activities targeting different age groups and always communicating towards building a better community and developing the identity of Osasuna. We also try to extend this identity through the workers and all the players. Our players are really keen on working with the community. You can catch it on YouTube, Chimy Avila, one of our players, went to a juvenile jail, and spent about four hours with them. Although we only shot about 10 minutes because Chimy didn’t want it to look like he did it for publicity. And now he’s been going to the jail almost every week. He goes with a couple of bags filled with tons of clothes, and he wanted to help them out because he too was in their place when he was younger. That’s more or less how the club works and you can feel it in the atmosphere.”
Athony: So you obviously have a very loyal fan base.
Luis: “There is a common phrase here in Pamplona, in Navarra which is ‘I don’t like football, I like Osasuna’. It is not about coming to football, not about La Liga, it’s more on the identity and the connection between the community and the culture. It’s bigger than football. Osasuna wears Red, and it’s because the flag of Navarra is red. On our bench we have the saint of the city right by the bench and the players, before the game, touch the saint for good luck. That is more or less how Osasuna works and how we have been working the past years.”
Kael: Has the support always been like this?
Luis: “This is also not casual, in 2014 we suffered a very huge crisis where we dropped to the second division, after making it to the Champions League, we got relegated and a lot of corruption cases and we had a lot of debt and entirely, the club was really bad. With that we almost got relegated from the second division, and that would've been the disappearance of the club. We got saved by a 92nd last minute goal by David Garcia who is currently the team captain. Then we realized we had to change everything."
People no longer trusted the club with all of that stuff going on and we were not having it from the community. Navarra is a very transparent community with a lot of companies and the club was not making it for our fans. We proceeded to change the board of directors, as you know we are a members club so all the board members, presidents and all are voted for every 4 years. Then they all decided they had to build the club once again from the ground up — like a house you can’t build from the roof. So we decided to boost our grassroots and our training facilities. We knew that we couldn’t compete with other teams with their budgets and buying players but we knew that we had talent in our region. So we chose to capitalize on that and boost the support for our youngsters and the grassroots program.
From the corporate side, we decided to go forward with transparency. We wanted everyone to feel the club, to feel that we are taking care of our members and we wouldn’t want to appear like we were lying to them so we started with that strategy. For the past two to three years, not only in the first division of La Liga but also the second division, we have been the most transparent club. We post all the data of the signings, the financing and all. We needed to build back the trust of our fans and have them rely on us again.”
Anthony: How long did it take to regain that trust?
Luis: “I believe we are still working on it, although you can see that everyone loves the club, but I think that we don’t have to think about it. It is a dynamic and constant process, the board of directors we have now and our president was recently re-elected 4 months ago so the community shows that they trust this board. Football is also a dynamic industry and we work towards having a better connection with our fans. We can do it because we are a football club and a members club. If you were a company owned club you would always be seeking revenue, their KPI’s and all that. We don't have those KPI’s, our KPI is to have fun. You can see it on the football field, the institution, everywhere.”