(Photos: Screenshots from UEFA.com)
The recently completed Futsal Champions League Campaign was the strangest since UEFA took over the best European club's competition. Due to the COVID-19 disease, it lasted for record 13 and a half months. It was the first Final Four tournament on which there were no spectators. It was the first final played between teams from the same country (the 1989 edition of the Futsal European Clubs Championship was played between two Croatian clubs, Uspinjača Zagreb and Kutina).
> UEFA Futsal Champions League History Guide
In this text, we will approach the analysis of the Final Four tournament from a slightly different perspective. We will analyze how UEFA branded the competition and how they covered it on their official digital channels.
In tomorrow's column, we will bring you a tactical analysis of the finals.
> Highlights: Barça wins Futsal Champions League!
Branding
Even though there were no spectators, Barcelona's Palau Blaugrana, the venue of the competition, looked great. A black professional futsal surface was placed on the hall's parquet. The first thing you notice on it is the official logo of the competition, placed in the middle of the surface.
All sponsors of the competition were clearly and conspicuously positioned on the LED displays surrounding the field. Stands on the opposite side of the camera were covered with Navy Blue tandas with competition's and sponsor's logos on it.
> The Story of the Rebranded UEFA Futsal Champions League!
The competition's logo was also displayed on the official TV graphics of the tournament.
Website
On the official website of the competition, the supporters could find all the relevant information about the tournament in real-time. Statistics, statements of participants, textual live stream, photos and video highlights, all could be found on the competition's web page which is clear and well optimized.
UEFA also streamed the games on the UEFA TV in territories where there was no broadcast coverage.
The official page of the competition could also be read in seven languages – English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.
UEFA Futsal on Social Media
On the three most popular social network's UEFA Futsal published respectable 203 posts from 8th to 12th October (the competition took place between 9th – 11th October). More than half of them were posted on Twitter (111), followed by Instagram with 69 posts and Facebook in a convincingly last place with 23 posts.
The dynamics of the posts is logical, given the algorithms of these social networks.
UEFA Futsal was also very active on Instagram's stories, publishing content on an hourly basis.
Just like with the official website, UEFA followed the competition on social media very well – all the information was well-conceived and available to their followers in real-time.
Furthermore, it is great that UEFA didn't have identical content on their social networks, giving followers different content on each of them.
However…
… in order not to turn out that UEFA did everything well, we also have one big complaint.
As much as UEFA made a good promotion DURING the competition itself, they did pretty redundant promotion BEFORE the competition started.
In a month preceding the beginning of the competition (from 8th September to 7th October) UEFA had only 24 posts related to the Final Four tournament on all three social networks combined! On Twitter, they had 15 posts, on Instagram 5 and on Facebook 4. In 30 days!
UEFA seriously started promoting the competition on digital platforms only a day before the start!
Further, UEFA's main Facebook page announced the tournament two days before the beginning (7th October), published one post on an opening day (9th October) and 10 pictures of the final day – the day after the finals (12th October)!
In our opinion, it is a big minus for such a big and wealthy organization such as UEFA.
We believe that European futsal's umbrella organization could make a tremendous job in promoting the futsal's elite competition, not just during, but before it as well.
They could take advantage of the fact that almost all the players considered to be among the greatest of all time played futsal when they were kids.
> Top 10 footballers who played futsal
Imagine how it would be great to see videos from Iniesta, Zidane, Ronaldinho or even Messi and C. Ronaldo who invite people to follow their teams and watch this attractive and dynamic sport on UEFA.tv and other channels.
UEFA could pay more attention to the presentation of opponents, their history, publish pools with questions for whom followers will cheer for…
According to some marketing and promotional parameters and standards, UEFA promoted Final Four tournament before the event at the level of some sort of lower-league competition.
Just compare the difference between following the UEFA Champions League (football) social media accounts and UEFA Futsal accounts.
Nobody expects futsal to get publicity close to football, but we didn't expect such a difference…
Conclusion
UEFA did a really great job in the branding of the competition and promoting it during the three-day event. They have done an excellent job, which is expected of one of the richest sports institutions in the world.
All relevant information was available in real-time, they had various content on their digital platforms and everything looked quite professional.
However, they lagged far behind in the promotion before the start of the competition. They failed to create a „hype“ that would appeal to sports fans who might not otherwise follow futsal. Especially in this unique year when spectators could watch the Final Four tournament only in front of their TV-s or monitors.
Still, in order to finish the text in a positive tone, we have to praise UEFA for the excellent coverage of the competition during the event, with the hope that they will improve the segment BEFORE the competition.
Please, feel free to give us your opinion about UEFA's covering of the Final Four!
