Senior Manager Partnerships Management

The Company

Asia Football Group (AFG) is the exclusive commercial agency for the Asian Football Confederation's (AFC) competitions from 2023-2028. AFG's partnership with the AFC covers the commercial rights for all major AFC National Team and Club competitions, including the AFC Asian Cup™, AFC Asian Qualifiers™, AFC Women's Asian Cup™, AFC Women's Olympic Qualifiers, AFC Champions League Elite™, AFC Women's Champions League™, and AFC Champions League Two™ as well as AFC youth and futsal competitions.

Driven by a shared passion and dedication to Asian football, our industry experts have a wealth of experience in global, regional, and local football marketing and are devoted to delivering exciting and engaging Asian football content to fans on the ground, on screen, and online. Working closely with the AFC and its stakeholders, Asia Football Group strives for the success and growth of Asian football, as well as redefining Asian football’s commercial standing within global football by addressing the shared business objectives of the AFC, its sponsors and media partners with solutions derived from optimising brand activations, fan engagement and digitally driven innovations.

The Role

The Senior Manager, Partnerships Management position will form part of the Sponsorship Partnerships Account Management team. The primary purpose of this role is to play a pivotal client management role with a focus on the Middle East market, acting as a key team-wide coordinator to lead the daily communication with assigned client/sponsor and to lead day-to-day client/sponsor requirements and projects. The role will also take a leading role in planning, organizing and delivering sponsorship related projects and hospitality experiences during the AFC Champions League Elite Finals and the AFC Asian Cup Saudi Arabia 2027.

The role requires a proactive, highly organised, personable and service-minded individual, with excellent attention to detail. The selected candidate must thrive and enjoy working in a complex and dynamic business environment, dealing with a wide range of daily tasks.

Key Responsibilities

• Work closely across internal and external stakeholders to ensure contractual rights are being delivered to sponsors/partners at the highest standards
• Provide consultative advice and to assist sponsors/partners to fully maximise their contracted rights as necessary and to carry out impactful campaigns that meet their partnership objectives
• Lead the customization of relevant competition sponsorship reports to the assigned sponsors/partners as well as coordinate with sponsors/partners to collect relevant sponsor activity reports for AFC
• Ensure payment are collected on time
• Within the Partnerships Account Management team, to support the SVP of Partnerships on the overall planning of the partnership management
• Manage relationships with various stakeholders internally and externally required across the department
• Develop and foster relationships with key contacts from the AFC and sponsors/partners
• Support the Partnerships Account Management team with the development of internal and external documents

Project Management:

• Oversee the planning and implementation of the assigned sponsorship rights projects across all account management team
• Work closely with the SVP of Partnerships and coordinate internal departments and external vendors on planning, organizing and delivery specific partnership-led projects

Event Management:

• Manage the delivery of relevant partnership-led events such as workshops and summit
• Travel to various venues across Asia onsite to support on commercial rights and delivery
• Any ad-hoc projects as assigned or other responsibilities as directed by the Company from time to time.

Skills, Experience and Qualifications

• 8+ years’ Account Management experience within a Partnerships, Sponsorship or Operations led role in the sports industry
• Exposure and experience with a focus in the Middle East region, paired with having worked in an international environment and managing well established international/multinational companies
• Ability to manage multiple clients and tasks simultaneously, and handling projects in a fast-paced high-pressure, rapid-growth environment
• Excellent client servicing mentality and a ‘can do’ team player attitude
• Strong organisational skills, with excellent attention to detail
• Ability to deal with various levels of internal and external stakeholders
• Emphasis on timelines and delivery of projects under pressure
• Flexibility and teamwork, with excellent initiative and a professional demeanour
• Proactive with the ability to prioritise high workload
• Highly proficient in Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook)
• Excellent verbal and written communication & presentation skills in English and ideally in Arabic.
• Experience of working in and/or a passion for football an advantage
• University undergraduate degree or equivalent mandatory
• Additional languages an advantage, but not a must
• Candidate having the right to live and work in Dubai, UAE an advantage, but not a must

Interested parties please apply with your application letter, resume, current and expected salary, and availability by clicking "Apply "

Deadline of application:

Applicants who are not invited for interviews within 6 weeks may consider their applications unsuccessful. Personal data collected will be treated strictly confidential and be used for the purpose of recruitment only. All collected information will be kept on our files for 12 months.