Expert speakers & leaders will gather at World Football Summit Asia to detail Saudi Arabia’s sporting transformation

WFS Co-Founder and Director Jan Alessie has overseen a team who’ve organised 18 events, establishing successful partnerships with top brands and building a community of more than 100,000 football professionals. He talked Sport360 through this month’s essential gathering in The Kingdom.

Question: Please introduce us to December’s WFS Asia event, and what will be on offer in Jeddah?

Alessie: World Football Summit Asia celebrates its first edition in KSA on December 12-13, and it will gather the global ecosystem of football industry professionals. Our second edition of WFS Asia aims to bring together more than 1,000 representatives and stakeholders from the football ecosystem.

The event will feature 130+ speakers, with 70 per cent of attendees being decision-makers from leading football properties and sports businesses. Normally, the core of our events relies upon three pillars:

• Building a powerful network
• Creating unmatched business opportunities
• Connecting top-tier sports industry talent

The guests at the WFS event in Saudi Arabia can expect insightful panels discussing how the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, is strategising to become a leading sports hub. The event is an excellent opportunity for global networking and business development; it showcases the increasing interest of European entities in the region and aims to connect the global football industry, fostering its growth and professionalisation.

Question: How important is it to hold an event of this kind in Saudi Arabia, at the present time?

Alessie: The decision to host WFS Asia in Saudi Arabia highlights the country’s growing prominence as a global sports powerhouse.

The Kingdom has already secured the 2027 AFC Asian Cup and FIFA Club World Cup and has attracted top talents on the field such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar or Karim Benzema and on the business front like Esteve Calzada or Peter Hutton.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia is the sole contender for hosting the 2034 Men’s FIFA World Cup. Alongside football, the nation has made significant strides in other sports, including LIV, eSports, for which they will start hosting an annual eSports World Cup in 2024, and more.

All in all, given Saudi Arabia’s aspiration to establish itself as a leading force in global sports, it made perfect sense for World Football Summit to organise an event here, connecting key regional football stakeholders with their international counterparts. As a matter of fact, we just published a special report analysing the markets with the highest potential in football, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was clearly identified as one of those markets.

The report is available on our website and stay tuned to the World Football Summit Podcast where will go into greater detail about how KSA is unlocking this potential.

Question: How has WFS Asia been tailored to the Saudi Arabian/Asian market?

Alessie: Undeniably, Saudi Arabia is becoming the epicenter of a cultural and economic shift in the football industry.

As such, we are giving a special degree of visibility to stakeholders of the entire region so they can share more insights into their sports business strategy in the future. This includes panels with leading figures, participation of local sports organisations, and visibility of initiatives taking place in the market.

If you look at the list of speakers, many of them work in top-tier leading institutions like the Roshn Saudi League, brands like Riyadh Air, or clubs like Al Nassr. Again, this will be a perfect scenario to understand more about the KSA’s ambition around football.

Question: What opportunities are on offer to WFS Asia attendees?

Alessie: In terms of tickets, we have three options available on our website (www.asia.worldfootballsummit.com): Our standard Corporate Pass; a special pass for Female Leaders in Football; and for those who cannot travel to Jeddah, there is a streaming pass available to follow the panels from anywhere in the world.

Then, once registered, attendees will encounter endless networking opportunities.

Through the WFS App one can get in touch with any attendee of the event, there will be lounges available for networking coffee and booths with some of the largest brands in football.

Question: What can attendees expect from WFS Asia’s speakers and panels?

Alessie: We are proud to welcome more than 130 leaders who will share insights and expertise on how they are shaping the future of football.

The topics that will be discussed include, among many others: Partnerships, fan engagement, sports technology, sustainability, ownership models, and women’s football. In total, our conference concept includes 11 different tracks and our detailed program can be reviewed on our website.

We have made a conscious effort to build a program that touches every angle of the industry and invites some of the ecosystem’s best names.

Question: How valuable is the synergy at WFS Asia when the best brands in sports and business meet?

Alessie: We are going through a period of transformational shift in the football industry that is advancing at an exponential rate.

Sports fans today have very different behaviors, they are less intense and have fragmented attention. New technologies are changing what happens on and off the pitch dramatically, and new governance models are taking the industry by storm…

The reality is that sports properties will need to rely on business partners that help them keep pace with the amount of change.

Ultimately, we believe the football industry needs to embrace a commitment to more professionalisation on the business side of things, and the collaboration between football properties and businesses will be instrumental in seeing this happen.

Question: Walk us through the history of WFS, its goals and what impact the organisation has enjoyed?

Alessie: Since its inception in 2016, WFS has successfully attracted more than 24,000 attendees across 18 events and has built a global community of 100,000+ sports industry executives throughout its platforms. Top names in the industry, including Gianni Infantino, Fatma Samoura, Ronaldo Nazario, Samuel Eto’o, Peter Moore and Cindy Parlow-Cone have participated, showcasing the event’s significance in the global football landscape.

We have hosted events all around the world in countries such as Spain, Turkey, South Africa, Malaysia, Czech Republic and we could not be more excited to finally be able to celebrate an event in KSA, given the ambition the country has to become a leading sports hub as I said before.

Question: If people want to attend WFS Asia, how can they do this?

Alessie: Just visit www.asia.worldfootballsummit.com and you can purchase our ticket directly there. We hope to see you all in Jeddah!