“The purpose of any football club is to serve the community,” Scunthorpe United appoints Manchester Met graduate as new CEO
A Manchester Met graduate has credited the skills he learnt at the University after being appointed as the new CEO of a famous English football club.
Founded in 1899, Scunthorpe United has had a long history of serving the local community. Fans will have been worried when the club ran into difficulties in 2023 but after support from local businesses and several significant changes their luck seems to have changed for the better.
One of these changes is the appointment of Matthew Roberts as its new CEO, a graduate of the Master of Sport Directorship (MSD) at Manchester Met.
Endorsed by organisations such as the England Rugby League and Premiership Rugby, the course is known for equipping its students with skills that keep them high in demand. Another graduate, Aneel Javed, has just landed the position of Senior Manager DEI at McLaren Racing.
As a sports broadcast journalist for over 20 years, Roberts is best known for his work as a presenter on BBC Sport’s coverage of MotoGP. He has also worked on everything from the Olympics to the Superbowl Live. Despite his love for football, he didn’t focus on the sport in his career until now.
Roberts said: “I’ve been kicking a football since I was a toddler and it’s always been my first love, if you like. I was never really that bothered about working in it because I didn’t want to turn my escape into my job.
“The MSD made me realise that I wanted to make a career shift and I really wanted to engage with what really matters to me, helping other people and having a meaningful impact through the power of football.
“I wanted to embrace my love for the game, but also my belief in the game’s potential to do good because unfortunately it can be abused by predatory capitalists. And I want to rail against that and show that it can be a force for good.”
Already aware of the course thanks to a previous alumnus, BBC sports broadcaster Mark Chapman, Roberts enrolled on the MSD.
He said: “I can only speak about my own experience, but my experience is that the MSD is the best thing I ever did. I almost didn’t do it because just when I had my applications accepted, COVID broke out and I lost a lot of my work and income.
“It was a big leap for me financially to make that investment, but it’s the best investment I ever made. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
The course material helped Roberts in subjects such as governance and operations management, areas he knew that he needed to upskill if he wanted to go into a leadership role. He found himself enjoying them and thrived on the course.
Roberts had already decided he wanted to move into an executive position within football, including developing his own five-year-plan to do so, but an opportunity came sooner than he could have imagined through the “MSD network,” the informal network of MSD students and graduates. Roberts notes that the network is just as strong after graduating as while on the course.
One of his fellow graduates put him in contact with the team at Scunthorpe United who were in the midst of a major restructure. They wanted a fresh voice from outside the game to innovate the club as CEO. After a rigorous interview process, Roberts was offered the job.
He said: “The higher purpose of any football club or any sports club is to serve the community and to create social value, physical and mental well-being. That’s why the original founder of Scunthorpe United started the club back in 1899 as a local boys’ club; to get people off their bums and being active.”
“That purpose should never alter. Obviously, the landscape has changed a lot, but fundamentally, Scunthorpe United have an opportunity to create social value and they can do that by providing joy through the entertainment that they offer on the pitch, by creating a sense of identity for the local people and a sense of pride in their community.”
