Strategic Analysis and Action Plan 2023-2026

Strategic Analysis and Action Plan 2023-2026

Athletic Club has unveiled an assessment of the club's current situation and a roadmap to follow over the next three years

Athletic Club has gradually released its Strategic Analysis and Action Plan 2023-2026, a report which the Board of Directors and the entity's executive managers have been working on together for the last six months.

All of the Club's employees received a first-hand explanation of the assessment and the roadmap. Athleticzales can learn about all the details of this vital project through a video (in Basque and Spanish) in which Club president Jon Uriarte and general manager Jon Berasategi explain the reports' different sections in detail. Furthermore, Uriarte, Berasategi and Mikel González, director of football, will present the project to the media at a breakfast meeting with 40 accredited journalists.

The study's results and subsequent action plan will guide Athletic through a modernisation process, laying the foundations to transform the Club into a high-performance institution and recover its DNA as a trophy-winning team.

This is the structure of the report

1. Context

Firstly, it examines the global and local context, which is essential to determine the specific position that Athletic Club occupies with respect to its competitive environment. The club's capacity to manoeuvre must be planned considering aspects such as the distribution of television money, the dominance of the Premier League and demographic factors in the Basque Country.

2. Diagnosis

Secondly, there is a precise diagnosis of the club's situation in its different spheres: economic, sporting, social, business and organisational. After identifying the main factors, the areas for improvement in each sphere have been established.

Athletic is in very good financial health: liquidity of close to 90 million euros, assets of more than 100 million euros and an extraordinary provision of 60 million euros.

However, the club has operating losses of 15 million euros per season, and if we add to this deficit the effect of the amortisations for the purchase of players, the loss for the 22-23 financial year reaches almost 30 million euros.

This situation calls for an action plan to increase recurring income and to seek greater efficiency in expenditure. Athletic must be a financially sustainable club.

The attraction and retention of talent, the strengthening of Lezama and the economic sustainability of the first teams are priority areas in the sporting sphere.

Building on solid social support, it is necessary to work on Governance, Gazte Abonoa passes, the Foundation, the connection with Club Members and further developing the Standing Section.

Commercial income must be accelerated, taking advantage of sponsorships, ticket sales, price management, Club Athletic, the Athletic brand and Lezama.

In short, Athletic Club is a financially sound organisation that needs to take a leap forward in all of its support areas in order to match its necessary growth. If not, it runs the risk of falling behind and being cornered by an increasingly demanding environment.

3. Ambition and unwavering commitment

Thirdly, and before addressing the Action Plan itself, the foundations have been laid for the specific measures to be developed through a series of guidelines. These guidelines are based in the club's commitment to identity and the ambition required for transforming and modernising the entity, thus projecting the club's historic identity into the future with commitment and ambition.

4. Action plan

The Action Plan is divided into four strategic lines of action that feed into each other and have Athletic Club's values at their core:

  • High standards, leadership and sporting success.
  • Social impact and responsible governance.
  • Economic growth and sustainability with a focus on income.
  • Organisation, culture and maximising performance.

In turn, these four strategic lines of action are developed around 16 pillars and 71 strategic actions, all of which are detailed one by one (except those considered confidential by the club), showing those tasks that have been successfully executed and reports on the evolution of the others.

Among the main advances are the strategic actions aimed at: the structural modernisation of Lezama (such as the implementation of new scouting methods, the creation of Performance and Psychology departments and the installation of a camera system applying artificial intelligence to sports analysis); maximising commercial income (with an increase of 23% in sponsorship, retail, ticketing and the commerical exploitation of San Mamés); generating income from new businesses (such as the DIGI sponsorship deal or the launch of AC Football Center and AC Football Experiences); and promoting a culture of organisation and maximum performance (through the application of KPI measurements that allow for the evaluation of targets).