“This is About Leaving a Legacy”: Geoff Wilson Opens Up on Legendary Consulting Career and New Book
Take a gander across the most populous countries on the planet, and you’ll find a plethora of countries that have struggled to make their mark in the FIFA World Cup. India (#1), Pakistan (#5), and Bangladesh (#7) have all failed to qualify for the world’s biggest sporting event, whilst Indonesia (#4) has not made it to the tournament since 1938, back when they were the Dutch East Indies. The reason for this is simple: it doesn’t matter if you have billions of people in your country; if you don’t have the right grassroots framework, you won’t be able to foster a fruitful football culture.
“What you want in the grassroots pyramid is to be as fat as possible, as strong as possible, and as tall as possible,” stated consultant Geoff Wilson in an exclusive R.org interview. “Organizations, leagues, clubs, federations, and countries want their grassroots to be as fat as possible and as high as possible in order to benefit both the elite side as well as that community sense of belonging. You want as many kids at 6/7/8/9/10 in the funnel playing your sport, and playing it right until they’re 70. In many countries, the pyramid is actually the other way, and that’s why they struggle in terms of their elite side.”
“What is the importance of grassroots? 1) Grassroots is what brings participation. 2) That participation, especially from the good kids, can then go into the elite, which strengthens the elite pyramid. 3) Having more people play sports is good for the country. It’s good for the community, and good for the region.
You’ve got health, you’ve got that area of community hubs, creating a sense of belonging, identity, pride, all of those bits and pieces. It gives the opportunity for future coaches, future referees, and future administrators, let alone future elite athletes. I work on the professional side of sport with federations, leagues, and elite clubs, but my passion is in the grassroots side.”
Laying Down Roots in Belfast
Born and raised in Northern Ireland, Wilson graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree from Queen’s University Belfast before completing a Master’s Degree in Marketing from Ulster University. Wilson worked in various marketing roles for British Telecom (BT), from market research and proposition development to database management and integrated and consumer campaigns, before eventually deciding to branch out into the sports industry in 2005. He spent the next 8.5 years as the Head of Marketing and Communications for the Irish Football Association, where he focused on building the IFA brand/marketing, merchandising, sponsorship, database management, public affairs, and public relations.
This would snowball into other roles, such as a marketing role with UEFA and Ulster Grand Prix (UGP), with Wilson leading UGP’s rebranding project, the cultivation of Bike Week and new digital assets, PR strategy, the sponsorship program, and a TV/Media and Merchandising strategy. Deep down, Wilson always knew he wanted to make a positive impact on both sports and society, something his father had instilled in him decades earlier.
“My father started my local club called Crumlin United with some friends, and back in the 1960s, they had to wash themselves in the stream. Fast-forward to today, and we have got two pitches, a big clubhouse, and 28 teams from kids to adults. We have a cooking class, a stitching class, we’ve got a church, we’ve got an after-school education program, we’ve got a female fitness program…it is a proper community club where people are coming in, and we’re going back out. We own the whole facility, and we are making a difference in our little community.
It is what sport should be all about: going out to the community, and the community coming to you. We share the learnings with lots of other clubs, and we have affected thousands of kids’ lives and thousands of adults’ lives because of belonging and playing for a club that started out really small and now owns its own land. The amount of effort we’ve put into it – we secure £100,000 to £200,000 worth of grants every year – it is seen as a leading grassroots club.”
It wasn’t long before some of the leading sporting organizations across the nation, and soon, the world, were calling for Wilson to lend his knowledge. The Belfast native served as a member of the CIM Ireland board, the governing body for marketing professionals, and sat on the boards of Sport Northern Ireland, the leading public body for the development of sport in Northern Ireland, and Tourism Northern Ireland. Moreover, he also returned to his alma mater and worked as a part-time lecturer for Marketing Masters students at Queen’s University. Wilson has emerged as one of the most prominent consultants in the sports industry, but unlike many of his counterparts, he hasn’t limited himself to a single sport.
“I’m passionate about any sport. I see the benefits of sport: the more people that play, you’ve got not only the physical side of being fit, but you have the mental side, being out, working with people. You’ve also got the teamwork, you’ve got the relationships…sport carries a lot of areas on benefits. What I found very quickly when I started to do a lot of work in football is that you can take the same learnings and move them into other sports, be that governance, strategy, marketing communications, club development, or league development.”
“You can move that into a variety of different sports, and what these other sports are saying is, ‘Well, football has developed so much because they were getting investment, so can we follow football? And then you get other sports that have moved equally as fast, like basketball, and what you find is that these sports, because of different leaders, are then moving and progressing at great strength. I work in football, basketball, netball, motorsport, badminton, golf, and martial arts, but the principles are the same: good governance, having a plan, generating money, having strong clubs and strong members. It’s good to share the learning: where basketball is really good in one or two things, football can learn from it. Where football is really good, basketball can learn. It’s the same with any sport.”
Spanning the Entire Sport Industry
It’s a warm spring afternoon as Wilson forms a pyramid with his hands, citing the importance of a grassroots framework, whilst sitting in front of a number of sporting items. There are photographs of Joe Montana, Roger Federer, Usain Bolt, Joey Dunlop, George Best, Rory McIlroy, Pelé, Diego Maradona, Dan Carter, and Lewis Hamilton, as well as an array of basketballs that were painted gold and bequeathed to him by FIBA (the International Basketball Federation). Wilson has worked as a consultant for FIBA since 2016, whilst he’s also worked as a consultant for UEFA since 2017 and AFC since 2018, as well as working as an expert advisor for Barcelona Innovation Hub since 2020.
“These golden basketballs were on the back of a program that I developed for athletes who were coming to the end of their pro basketball careers. It didn’t matter if they were in the NBA or Europe, or elsewhere; we put them through an educational program on what life was like after basketball. The idea is to equip them with the skills and the abilities so that they can go and do something after the court. It’s a nice memento to remember the people that we have met and the impact that we have made.
I think basketball has just totally transformed over the last 10 years, and they’ve got a really strong upward trend. What you find between smaller sports and a bigger sport is the number of countries involved, then the culture that that brings with it, and then also the development of those countries. What we’ve really moved well in basketball is looking at what we call FIBA+, a program where we go in and we develop the member federations.”
“We help them develop strategic marketing plans, and we’re giving that support that strengthens basketball in that country. Now we’re looking at FIBA Academy, an educational program that can really learn, educate, and strengthen future leaders as well as current leaders in the sport. But a lot of it is down to the different cultures that are involved, and the numbers involved, and then that also brings different areas, such as development, coach education, referee development, and different leadership that needs to be really driven.
But for me, I think basketball is doing an amazing job, both on the competition side, the development side, and the promotional side of the sport. Whether you’re in football or basketball, the principles are the same. What is different is just the scalability and then what comes with it, regional differences, regional scales, and regional confederations, and how you make sure that the pyramid remains strong is absolutely fundamental, be that grassroots or the elite pyramid.”
At 52 years of age, Wilson has carved out a reputation as a globetrotter. Last week, he was in Croatia; next week, he’ll be in Trinidad & Tobago. He has visited 104 different countries, balancing his time between a litany of different roles, such as the Chair of Netball Northern Ireland, a consultant for FIFA and EFL, the Chair of the Sports Council Trust Company (subsidiary of Sport England), and the owner of his consultancy group and a conference speaker. A UEFA A-licensed coach, Wilson also volunteers as the head coach of his son’s football team. And this year, he published his first-ever book: Leading a Grassroots Sports Club: A Practical Guide to Managing and Developing Your Club.
“I want grassroots clubs to be around for the future. That’s what I want. There are thousands of grassroots clubs in the UK, but if they’re no longer around, that will have an impact on that country. Not only in terms of health, mental health, physical, togetherness, identity, but also the elite side that will be wiped out. What I really want from this book is that there’s a legacy, and that these clubs will be around for the future.
Number two is that the clubs, in essence, will have a strong foundation. Good governance, having a plan, being a welcoming club, sorting out, and having a great experience from a coaching or coach education point of view. Generating money, facility development, opening up for inclusivity, so everyone is welcome, no matter what the sport is. I wrote it so that grassroots clubs would be around for the future. I would love to see more grassroots clubs being stronger because of the process to follow, the templates to use, and the content that’s contained in this book. Is my number one thing to sell books? Surprisingly, no. This is about leaving a legacy that people can have strong grassroots clubs and have them for the future.”