Do Plans Win Titles? Pillars for Structuring Strategic Planning for Soccer Clubs from the Perception of the Main Actors of The of Soccer Universe

Abstract

Achieving the goals within a company requires a plan on what you want to achieve. In a soccer team it is not different. Brazilian soccer teams are institutions that despite the large current financial volume, they are generally loss-making and inefficient. In 2014, debts of the main 12 Brazilian teams exceeded R$ 5 billion, although the audience and revenues have grown far above the GDP. This article aims to propose a strategic planning model for the management of soccer teams based on the current perception from the major actors (athletes, members, coaches, advisers, journalists, soccer executives etc.), from the soccer world and success cases used as benchmark in the literature. This research design consisted of two phases: first it is a qualitative research, where we interviewed four soccer executives. The second phase was quantitative, where we applied 203 questionnaires to the six different sample groups classified by their functions: athletes, partners, officers, directors/managers, technical journalists and commission board. The survey showed no significant differences between the groups regarding the importance of strategic planning, with the exception of counselors board that gave different responses related to the guiding in teams. Data suggest that the transition from traditional organizational structure to a team-company structure still suffers from barriers imposed by vanity or inability of the leaders and by the immediate-results culture.