Director of Business Development

Footballco is the world's leading football content & culture company, built for the next generation of fans. Our mission is to give fans more of the game by building football communities that entertain, inform, and inspire action. We cover everything in football from news and analysis, original reporting, and social media content, to web stores, video, podcasts, newsletters, and live scores. With over 4 billion video views per month, 130 million social followers globally, and a reach of 720 million across web, social, and video platforms. Through its market leading brands Kooora, GOAL & Indivis, Footballco reaches 20 million people a month in Saudi Arabia and 172 million Arabic speaking fans in MENA. Footballco is the world’s largest football media company and one of the largest digital media companies in sport globally. In late 2024, we opened our new regional headquarters in Riyadh to better serve our audiences and commercial partners in the Kingdom

About the Role The Business Development Director is a newly created role within Footballco Arabia that will be responsible for growing our business in Saudi Arabia and the wider MENA region through partnerships with brands, rights holders and government entities. Working alongside the SVP Middle East, the role will build long term relationships with key decision makers to unlock significant revenue opportunities.

The successful candidate will be able to clearly demonstrate a track record of creating and delivering significant football / sports projects in the Kingdom both in terms of revenue and scale.

This individual will be experienced and capable of working with senior decision makers in the Saudi sport and government ecosystem and have a deep understanding of the domestic, regional and global football landscape at a club, league and federation level.

We are looking for an exceptional & confident written and verbal storyteller at a senior level.

What you'll be doing :

Work with SVP Middle East to build long term strategic rights holder, government and brands partnership that deliver against Footballco’s revenue targets in Saudi Arabia and the wider region

Work closely with the wider global sales team and the existing regional team with accountability for creating and maximizing revenue opportunities from key brands to deliver local and global sales targets.

Map out key brand planning and decision making units across both central and local client stakeholders and influence the ecosystem to drive global and local revenue.

Develop a network of senior contacts across marketing, content and sponsorship departments

Have a strong grasp of industry metrics and foresight to predict future trends to ensure we are ahead of the competition.

What you have :

Deep understanding of the football landscape in Saudi Arabia

Proven track record of building revenues in the Saudi football or sports space and overachieving targets

Experience in working with rights holders, government entities and Saudi brands at the highest level managing senior personnel and teams across multiple locations

Commercially astute, a sound deal maker you will ensure Footballco is a must buy for brands

Extensive experience of delivering against a sales target and working collaboratively with internal stakeholders across multiple countries.

Experience negotiating complicated multi-platform commercial partnerships with experience in TV and digital.

Have a strong perspective and previous hands on experience on sponsorship, content and experiential offerings in the industry

Fluency in Arabic and English language is essential for this role

Ability to produce and present compelling presentations and proposals in both Arabic and English

NOT ESSENTIAL BUT GREAT IF YOU ALSO HAVE

Knowledge of the sports and tech industries as well as exposure to brand marketing.

Experience working in matrixed / multinational organizations

Footballco is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on age, race, gender, colour, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability or any other protected category.

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