The most precious piece of real estate for a football team is not on the field, is on the front of players' jerseys, a tape of fabric on the level of the foot, some companies will pay tens of millions of dollars to rent for a season.
But Bohemian FCA small but powerful club belonging to fans in Dublin, made his money to target an area which is under the front of the jersey. Convinced that the heart and soul of fans can be worth more than any corporate advertising budget, Bohemian – or Bohs to be short – promotes causes, not businesses, on its jerseys outside. The strategy transformed a club once directed towards relegation and financial ruin in the most profitable of the Irish first division.
“I cannot design any way where Bohs could be in a position that a fan of Bayern Munich in Munich or a Manchester United fan in Manchester would like to buy a Bohs jersey for football reasons,” said Daniel Lambert, the young chief of the team operations last week during a Dublin video conference. “But if you bring it in an emotional space, there are people who care. They care about Palestine. They care about the migrant crisis, the climate, could be anything.
“If we can connect with people from different countries and cities in the world on this basis, our potential market is enormous.”
How much? Although Lambert refused to share detailed figures, he thinks that most clubs in the first Ireland team at 10 teams will sell between 100 and 500 shirts outside while Bohemian could sell around 20,000. While other premiere clubs have the chance to finance 5% of their annual budget thanks to sales of jerseys, Bohemian plans to earn around 40% of his income from his income Socially conscious shirts Who presented the colors of the Palestinian flag, a tribute to Bob Marley and the slogan “The Welcome Refugees” under the silhouette of a fascinating family.
“There is a lot of financial logic for this,” said Lambert, 37, whose club surrounds a large part of these profits to migrant groups, charities for the homeless or others providing a medical assistant to Palestine.
At a time when many public -oriented companies beat a hasty retirement from everything that feels the cultivation of awakening, Bohemian has decided to double with gay marriage and climate change with the severe asylum policies of Palestine and Ireland. Although this encountered a repression – and earned the team the nickname “We put any cause on a Jersey FC” of certain detractors – it could also have saved the 135 -year -old club, one of the oldest in Ireland.
A dozen years ago, Bohemian entered his worst section this century, the one who saw him lose more games than he won while finishing in the lower half of the three consecutive seasons table and by escaping relegation closely. The club's finances were in worst condition.
“We were bankrupt,” said Lambert. “We had a part -time team; People earning 50 euros per week, 80 euros per week. ”
For many games, Dalymount Park, the stadium over 100 years old in Phibsborough, a diversified district of less than two miles north of the center of Dublin, was two -thirds. In 2015, club members fell to 420.
The club's goal, an Irish champion of 11 times, was to win, but said Lambert, he was also responsible for being a force for good. Bohemian did neither.
“It led to a little introspection, I suppose, in terms of what to represent as a football club? What are we? ” said Lambert, who joined the team's board of directors in 2011, at the start of his collapse. “If you are a club with a lot of money, you develop your fans base by earning a lot of trophies. If you don't have that, what is another way to please people? The human and emotional level.
“If you engage someone on a human and emotional level, you are more likely to receive loyalty from them over a period of time.”
Lambert knows a little about marketing because he is a co -owner of Bang Bang Bang Cafe, in the shadow of Dalymount Park – as well as the host of an eclectic podcast that emanates from the coffee – and is the manager of the Irish republican hip -hop group. (The Irish Film and Television Academy chose a biopic on the group as submission of the Oscars of his country.)
Daniel Lambert, head of the Bohemian FC exploitation, is all smiling during the international solidarity match between his club and Palestine at Dalymount Park in Dublin.
(Stephen McCarthy / Sportsfile via Getty Images)
The plan he helped to develop to save Bohemian did not depend on the generosity of a deep owner, but was, like the team itself, a basic effort that started about a decade ago when the club began working with street artists and sold its own beer, called an internal poet and began to do community work.
“The strength of most football clubs is how rich the owner is. Our strength is the number of member people, how many people are ready to come to a game,” said Lambert. “It's our real strength.”
Then came the Jersey campaign, although it took a rocky start in 2019 when the club placed an image of the Jamaican singer Bob Marley on a shirt-and quickly received letters from ceasefies representatives of the deceased singer. Later, they obtained an agreement allowing Bohemian to repeat the shirt.
“We have sort of described them what we are, that we are a non -profit entity and I think they really liked it,” said Lambert. “They respected history, respected who we were.”
A second shirt, released during the coronavirus pandemic, was white with fine red and black diagonal lines and the profile and a man, a woman and a child sandwiched between the words Refugees are welcome. The crest of the club is above the left breast and the discreet logo of O'Neills, an Irish sportswear manufacturer and sponsor of the club, is on the right side.
With this shirt, intended to draw attention to the controversial controversial system of “direct disposition” of Ireland, by obtaining international press coverage, Bohemian saw its sales of goods increase by more than 2000% while the average attendance last season was only 260 timid fans of the capacity of Dalymount Park, where the flags of the corner are beyond the rainbow.
Club membership, which has increased by 600% in the last decade, has been capped at 3,000 to ensure that there is a headquarters at all owners. There is a long list of people waiting to join them.
Bohemian, who launched his nine -month championship season on February 16, revealed the first of his three 2025 road jerseys. He will wear the Punk group logo based in Dublin Fontaines DC, which will open a tour of 26 countries next month. The home shirt, unveiled last fall, is a red and black striking jersey with the emblem of a local furniture store through the chest.
“We exist in a small football market, but with regard to the values and our model of property and our structure and our potential to derive from new fans bases, to collect funds and profile for causes and problems, we can be larger than Man United,” said Lambert. “Clubs very often take a position on anything. They like to be agnostics because they earn money. ”
Bohemian, on the other hand, earns money precisely because it is not Its main objective. Its goal is to make a difference.
“This allows us,” said Lambert, “to have sales that far exceed our attendance. To be part of the world football landscape, in a small manner, on problems that are not directly linked to players on the field.”
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