Interview with the World Champion CMO

During the seventh edition of SFS, the expansion of the AFA brand was also discussed. Giorgia Cenni from Sky Sport interviewed Leandro Petersen of the Argentine Football Federation.
“We are the federation with the highest revenue from sponsorships”, Leandro Petersen began, adding, “We are signing deals with major multinational companies, and we are highly focused on strategic, growing markets like the USA, China, and the Middle East”.
The Argentine delegate also touched on past challenges: “We started from a difficult position, with significant debt and unclear roles. Even FIFA reprimanded us. However, we’ve done well to professionalize the entire structure. Our current goal is to become a benchmark in marketing. We look up to the NBA and Formula 1 as our inspirations”.

An important topic covered during the panel was AFA’s substantial presence in the Chinese market: “Our expansion began 7 years ago, and today we are the leading federation in terms of sales in the country. We’ve organized several events and friendly matches in China, and now offer a strategic range of over 300 products. Messi’s presence has been a real catalyst, though it wasn’t always like this, as our structure was less solid back then”.
Leandro Petersen wrapped up the discussion by outlining the federation’s future goals: “The next target for us is India. We feel a strong obligation to keep improving, and we want to carve out a new path that everyone will have to follow”.