Como’s owners look beyond sport with brand building, travel plans

It has been a slow start to the Serie A season for newly promoted Como but for their deep-pocketed owners, Indonesia’s billionaire Hartono brothers, progress on the pitch is part of a wider business plan centred on the image of the lakeside city.

Como have just returned to Italy’s top flight after a 21-year absence.

Although a small club in Serie A terms they are coached by former Spain midfielder Cesc Fabregas and bolstered by a string of summer signings, including ex-Barcelona midfielder Sergi Roberto and former Spanish national goalkeeper Pepe Reina.

Having failed to win any of their first four matches, they finally picked up their first three points at Atalanta on Tuesday.

But Serie A survival, plus the revamp of Como’s historic and scenic lakeside Giuseppe Sinigagliastadium, are just strands of a multi-pronged strategy that has soccer at its heart but stretches to travel, fashion and the media.

When London-based Sent Entertainment, part of the Hartonos’ conglomerate Djarum, took over the club in 2019, the team were struggling in lowly Serie D after years of financial troubles.

Their first idea was producing a documentary on an amateur football club.

“Slowly we realized that the opportunity was far greater than what we originally thought,” said Mirwan Suwarso, the executive who represents the ownership.

“We’d like to create a model similar to that of Disney, where the centre of the business is the lake, is Como, is the city. That’s our business. That’s how we see us,” he told Reuters.

COMO’S ATTRACTION

Boosted by the presence of Hollywood star George Clooney, who has owned a local villa since the early 2000s, Lake Como in northern Italy is a booming destination for foreign tourism.

The club and its owners, who have a fortune of some $48 billion according to Forbes, are eager to seize the opportunities offered by playing in such a beautiful spot.

“We will create travel packages to bring people to Como from the United States and the United Kingdom,” said Suwarso.

“The initial stage is to utilise the game experience, but we will marry it with things which are exclusively only available in Como.”

The club, in which former France striker Thierry Henry is also a shareholder, has invested in a local brewery producing silk-filtered beer and partnered with fashion brands to create sporting and urban streetwear collections.

“The retail division does not sell only Como’s football team stuff. We have now created our own Como-linked brands,” said the executive.

“We’re developing an urban streetwear (line) and we will have women’s wear as well”.

There are also plans to expand the club’s video-streaming platform, which currently hosts Como-related sporting and lifestyle content.

While Como still has a long way to go before becoming an established Serie A force, Suwarso expressed his full confidence in Fabregas, who initially joined the club as a player after an illustrious career at Arsenal, Chelsea and Barcelona.

“We’re not too concerned about where we are right now because we can see from game to game our performance is getting better,” he said.

“The goal is to survive the season and then to build again from this season to the next.”