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as a brand. An experiential space where fans from around the world came and watched games and hung out with each other. We put on exhibitions, talks and film screenings.
I remember arriving for the Spain vs. Portugal game in that opening week, and I just sat down
and to my right there was a family of five from Peru. I said, ‘What tickets have you got?’ and they said, ‘We haven’t got any tickets, we’ve been fans of COPA90 since it launched. We’re hoping to get tickets, but if not we’re going to come here every day, because it’s brilliant.’ I got quite choked up.
It meant a lot to a lot of people that travelled out and were part of that experience. I think we’ve got a real role to play in having an experiential element to the COPA90 brand, so that clubhouse model
will continue.
Do you think we’ll see more People’s Champions in future?
Yes, I do, in so many ways. Addressing fans, and caring about building fan bases rather than audiences, has become the only true way of building a modern media business. There’s just too much other stuff out there to take people’s attention away. You’ve got to win on a far more elemental and emotional level.
Frankly, the industry and the machine of football had forgotten about fans. That’s the truth of it.
So it provided us, as fans, an opportunity to create a media business that represented what we felt was
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