Inside Real Madrid

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2017

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Real Madrid are the world's most valuable football club. They're the reigning European champions and have won more European Cups than any other club in history. Now they've opened their doors and their books to outside scrutiny for the first time, giving Columbia Business School professor Steven Mandis unprecedented access to every part of the business.

How does an organisation co-owned by 92,000 fans operate? How was the club transformed from the brink of bankruptcy 16 years ago? What's the relationship between success on the pitch and off the pitch? What role do values play in the business? What lessons are there for other sports teams and for businesses more widely?

Through conversations with fans, players, coaches and board members - including a rare in-depth interview with club president Florentino Perez - Professor Mandis uncovers the secrets of Real Madrid's sporting and financial success.

(Image: Professor Mandis and Real Madrid president Florentino Perez. Credit: Real Madrid)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Rail Madrid are the highest valued sports club in the world.
0:07.0	They've won more European cups than any other team in history and are the reigning European and FIFA club world champions.
0:20.0	Now, thanks to unprecedented access to every part of the club, I've been allowed to reveal
0:28.2	the business secrets behind Real Madrid success.
0:32.1	The lessons I've learned apply not just to sports teams but to
0:35.7	organizations in all walks of life. The fans you can hear are cheering on the team's defense of the European Cup.
0:45.0	I'm in Madrid for the week of their final Champions League group game
0:49.0	against German side, Berusha Dornment. I'm Stephen Mandis. My day job is being a professor at Columbia
0:59.5	Business School in New York. And I'm Simon Mabin. I'm a producer with the BBC World Service and the two of us have been making
1:06.4	this podcast together I thought Stephen before we do anything else you should explain
1:11.6	how all of this came about.
1:13.0	So I was living in Madrid, taking time out to finish writing a book about the organizational
1:18.1	culture at the Investment Bank, Goldman Sachs, my old employer. And a friend introduced me to the Director General of
1:25.8	Real Madrid. Okay, so this is Carlos, Carlos Martinez de Albonos.
1:30.8	Carlos was responsible for most activities with the exception of the players actually on the pitch.
1:37.3	And so when you met him it's fair to say you weren't really a fan of football, you weren't
1:42.4	a big rail Madrid fan. I had only been to one
1:46.8	soccer match when I was a child and so then after that meeting with Carlos you got really interested and you kind of went to
1:54.6	Carlos with this proposal what did you say to him?
1:58.6	So I asked him if I could do a rigorous analysis and academic analysis of the club. And he said yes.
2:05.0	Yes I was surprised that he said yes and what I learned later was that the club was very
2:10.1	focused on learning about itself and its organization.
	...

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