We held an interview with Mr. Mickel Lauritsen, ESSMA Board member, Director of Stadium Operations and Security at Brøndby IF at World Soccer Congress 2016.

Yutang: Could you give us a brief introduction of ESSMA?

Mickel Lauritsen: ESSMA is a stadium knowledge platform. We aim to be the main knowledge platform in, first of all, European football. We also connect with the world as well. Right now we have over 300 stadium partners, which share us in the best practices of stadium management, pitch management, fan entertainment, safety management.

We are a non-profit organization, we have trustful relationships with a lot of leagues like La Liga, the Bundesliga. We have a lot of federations like the French league federation, of course, many stadiums, my clubs like Chelsea, of course, like my club Brøndby. That diversity on many partners allow us to have a great content and allow us to share with all of our stadium partners in the best practices.

We have four main expert domains. That is stadium management, pitch management, safety management and fan entertainment. Every year, we arrange different tours and different conferences, summits for the members, where you can share and learn knowledge to improve your business collaboration.

Yutang: Who are they to attend your congress summit?

Mickel Lauritsen: Like this congress right here,it’s a lot of members, it’s sponsors.

Yutang: Are they mainly from European countries?

Mickel Lauritsen: Yeah, mainly right now. They are from Europe. We have guests from the United States to come to speak. We try to involve, try to look everywhere to obtain knowledge, and to see the new trends inside the world football to get the best practices and get the knowledge we can share with our members.

Yutang:  Is ESSMA a particular platform for football or other sports?

Mickel Lauritsen: Mainly it’s about football, but I think you could work on other sports and draw knowledge from the things that we do. But I think the main focus is about football.

Yutang: We’ve learned that ESSMA has a training program “Join the 'X' Manager”. With the rapid development of Chinese soccer industry, do you have some advice for the Chinese stadium managers?

Mickel Lauritsen: You talk about the 'X' Manager program, that’s a shadow program we establish to enable stadium managers or commercial directors to share their knowledge about clubs, to see how they conduct their database businesses, operations during matches, to learn, to share, to involve the particular club. It could be that one Chinese club had a question we got in the safety issues inside the stadium, then they would contact ESSMA, and ESSMA would connect them with a club with similar issues or solutions to settle your problem. And then they would get safety managers to follow the safe manager of that particular club. It would be a 3-day course, a 3-day operation where we follow the day before the match, during the match, and the day after. Then you discuss and share information during that period.

Yutang:  From your perspective, what are the latest technology being used to ensure the safety of a stadium?

Mickel Lauritsen: Right now, from my point of view, if I look at it as a safety director, the most important thing is cameras surveillance, because there is a lot of threat right now from a lot of different angles. With technology involving in surveillance cameras, you will be able to connect surveillance cameras to fix recognition, for example. You will be able to find the specific person we are looking for, to keep the spectators safe and make a great atmosphere inside the stadium.

Also I would say, it is as much as technology as it is enduring training. Education is really important, because there are a lot of different things happening during football games, during operation of a football match, both inside and outside the stadium. This is very important that stewards know what they are doing, what their plan is, how to react, how to get contact with the sports, that can both be from the safe issues, but it can also be from revenue, commercial point of view, because good stewards can keep people safe, they could always welcome the sport fans in a meanful way that attracts new supports, which will help the club economically.

Yutang: You also work for Brøndby IF, what challeges you meet when you provide excitement for football fans, also guarantee the safety?

Mickel Lauritsen: Right now, the main focus, the major problem in Denmark is mainly from flares and fireworks inside soccer stadiums, that’s our absolutely main focus right now is how to fix this. And right now we’re working together with a lot of different clubs both inside Denmark and outside Denmark to find a solution to that particular problem, because it is a problem all over the Europe. I don’t know if you have the problem in China right now.

But in Europe, you have a lot of different cultures inside the sports. Some people love flares and fireworks, but also bring a great threat to the stadium. If you could remove the fireworks techniques, it would be great for any club. But that’s the main focus right now.

Yutang: In your eyes, what should be a safe stadium look like?
Mickel Lauritsen: A safe stadium is a happy place. It’s a place where security and safety management is invisible to the general public. The supports only have to focus on having a good time and being entertaining, because they pay money to get into the stadium and watch a match or a concert or whatver they pay to watch. So to do that, you have to, as I said before, wee educate personnel, you have to have great operation plans, you have to know what you’re dealing with. That can be different from each club, from each match, because no opponent is the same, no situation is the same. So you have to prepare for every event, for every match.
Yutang: As a director at Stadium Operations and Security at Brøndby IF, how do you see the Chinese football market?

Mickel Lauritsen: It’s very exciting. You have seen a place like this. I think, from my point of view, just last year, the investment in tranfers was greater than European leagues. That just shows the level of commitment, the level of passion for the game of football, that’s inspiring for all to see.

Yutang: Do you have any plan to host an ESSMA congress here in China, to give lectures for the managers here?

Mickel Lauritsen: Oh, I’d love to do that. Because every time you do lectures, every time you meet new people, you always learn, you always get knowledge to go back and teach, for example, the clubs in Denmark and in Europe. You have a lot of ideas in China and a lot of those ideas, maybe we haven’t thought of that. Because you are relatively new in the game, so you look at it differently than what we do. I find that very exciting. Maybe from my point of view, I could draw my experience from the different matches and from the different things I’ve seen in Europe.

I could bring that along to the Chinese market. And of course, ESSMA is all about knowledge and sharing of knowledge. So of course, we are very intersted in the Chinese market, because as I said before, you have a lot of passion for this and a lot of knowledge to share with us, to share with the Europe. And we have a lot knowledge to share with Chinese market. So I think it could be a great preparation to involve in the game of football.

Mickel Lauritsen is the Director of Stadium Operations and Security at Brøndby IF. He gave a presentation on security management and discussed the history and problems Danish Football faced. Poorly designed stadiums, stewards with insufficient knowledge and no real planning in safety and security for stadiums were a wakeup call to implement new ideas and new ways of working.

Besides the security management story of Danish football, he also presented ESSMA underlying our values and expertise which can be of value for a rising football region.