FIFA Master Alumni - Where are they now? - Vitor Recchia

Vitor Recchia

Current Position: Director of Football at Championnet Sports FC (Amateur club in FFF - Paris 1st Division)

Year of graduation: 2025 (25th Edition)

Nationality: Brazilian / French

What does your current role involve?

Immediately after graduating from the FIFA Master, I was recruited as Director of Football at Championnet Sports FC, an amateur club in the Paris FFF District with around seven hundred members. The club was in a very delicate position, with the former director leaving two months before the beginning of the season to go to a rival club, taking with him around twenty coaches (80% of the staff) and three hundred youth players. The club needed someone to rescue the situation and restructure the environment, and this is where I stepped in.

In my role, I oversee the entirety of the football activity at the club, from the Senior 1st team where I try to put the best resources for the best performance, passing through the development of women’s football where I try to motivate to the maximum girls to play in optimal female-only conditions, to managing all the Youth categories from U5 to U18 where I aim to form players from the youngest ages to join academies at pro clubs, move up to our Senior team but above all to help grow in them the love for football.  

Earlier in my career and before the FIFA Master, I worked for six years as a Consultant in Finance in Paris. I performed a wide array of missions, such as financial analysis and valuation in M&A, procurement in Energy, supplier network management or financial controlling in Fashion, for the accounts of big groups such as ENGIE, CHANEL, SNCF & EUROP ASSISTANCE.

Even though I was on a comfortable career path, I always felt the passion component that I felt for sports was missing. I had always been involved throughout my life in sports, either by complimentary jobs, participating in competitions or attending events, but I wanted it to be a part of my professional work, which is why I chose to attend the FIFA Master. Although I had worked previously for prestigious organizations, for the first time I felt proud of my work at the club, making a direct impact in the community. It has also been very enriching since working at the higher role in a small organization means huge responsibilities with very little resources, so I had to learn very quickly and be very efficient at solving problems. Moving forward with my career, I will be looking for roles with similar responsibility and where I can make an even greater impact.

How has the FIFA Master helped you in your career?

The FIFA Master helped me make the connection between the technical knowledge and experience I had acquired up to that point and the sports industry. One of the most valuable things was learning about all the roles that existed and how dense the industry is. That helped me understand the key components of each job to know where I could potentially fit and what it takes to get there. Sports are for me the most interesting thing, so spending a full year studying everything around it, and connecting to professionals through the Final Project was an immense privilege.

What advice would you give to future students?

Stay curious. Listen as if it was the only thing that mattered, ask questions, learn and take everything you can from the professors and speakers. Remember that only around twenty-five people every year have the chance to sit in those FIFA Master classrooms and to study sport every day, so seize that opportunity. Also, use the Final Project as an asset, it’s an unique chance to connect and reach out to anyone in the industry. Finally, a special moment for me was my first Lanfranchi Cup match in Zurich, under an enormous thunderstorm! I got to meet many alumni, played an amazing game and went out celebrating the win afterwards!

FIFA Master - International Master in Management, Law and Humanities of Sport, ranked Europe's No.1 course a record 13 times by SportBusiness.

Organised by CIES in cooperation with De Montfort University (UK), SDA Bocconi School of Management (Italy) and the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland).

"CIES, 30+ years of impacting how sport is managed worldwide" & "FIFA Master, 25+ years of Excellence in Sport Business Education"