As he said, it’s a shocking story. More precisely, swings. It was football first, then journalism, then marketing and finally entrepreneurship. Charlotte Planes, A girl who grew up in Portugal who decided to get a haircut and change her name to play football, is today the first woman to run a company that represents football players.
unique Sports Management, The name of this agency focuses only on female players, it already manages the careers of 40 athletes, grew 40% last year and works with the belief that the business will grow by 30% in 2022. “I live the truth. What I always love through my players,” Planas synthesizes. “Because I couldn’t do that in me, I wanted to try what the next generation of athletes could do,” he explains.
Because this 30-year-old businesswoman, the lack of role models and her desire to pursue a career led her to study Journalism and Business and Management. And there the cycle began to close: internships at the As newspaper, first news at the Camp Nou, first contacts with the football players, and a big discovery: “Many of them didn’t have agents to support them on the commercial side.” Also a Nike model and with connections in the community, she began acting as an occasional liaison until she decided to devote herself entirely to what she believed could be her new profession.
After making a few more tumbles, such as former Barça president Sandro Rosell hiring him to be part of a project he’s preparing in Africa, Planas founded Be Universal, a platform to connect female athletes in Spain with brands of their choice. do advertising campaigns with them. These years later, at the doorstep of the pandemic, the investment partners wanted to shape the project in ways he didn’t quite agree with. Then he founded Unik Sports Management. This time he allied himself with another agent, Arkaitz Coca, and devoted himself exclusively to women’s football.
“We went in with a very clear idea from their experience with men’s football: Why do they have to have so many people when they can run everything from the same agency?” He raised it. “We came out with a very special 360 offer: representation, marketing, side business or financial advice, sports contracts, being there when they want to buy a house…even looking for a car at dawn,” Planas explains. earning income by keeping a percentage.
That’s how he worked with Leila Ouahabi, Claudia Pina, Patri Guijarro, Lola Gallardo, Estefanía Banini and 35 other football players in Spain, England, Italy, Portugal, France, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and even Japan.
Much of the key is the rise that women’s football has generally experienced in recent years. This entrepreneur associates the phenomenon with a cocktail of factors: the role of women has been revalued across all industries, making it almost inevitable to expose it (“that was nice to do”), then people started consuming it. more and it eventually became a profitable business.
“I remember very well that in the beginning a player asked me for a few boots and I didn’t buy them: I had to go and tell them they gave them to me,” Planas recalls. “Now the same player has a huge deal with that brand and has the material to annoy him,” says the expert, who offers yet another piece of evidence: Last week, there were as many spectators as the Survivors in the European Championship match against Spain. He says the difference in brand interest is “huge.”
Therefore, his biggest challenge as a professional is currently reaching the prices he has closed his trade deals. He is so convinced that this anger is only just beginning, that he knows with almost certainty that in three years the agreed rates will fall short.
It is so obvious that it will continue in this sector until then. “I’m very restless, I have two or three new things I’m working on, but it’s always related to football: What’s clear to me is that I don’t want to leave this industry,” Planas concludes. Close the door to new Projects. “As long as it contributes to the industry, I will consider it,” he concludes.
first director
He wanted to be a football player and make a living from it, but life (and being born thirty years or so soon) was put before him. Finally, after stumbled several times, Carlota Planas became the first female manager of a football player’s agency. She says she didn’t succeed, so that others could succeed. Her portfolio includes names like Leila Ouahabi, Claudia Pina, Patri Guijarro or Lola Gallardo. In total, about 40 athletes from various parts of the world could call him both to manage a transfer and to pick up a car at dawn if he left it lying around.
Source: Informacion
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