An Unconventional Route into Sport

Most careers in sports management begin inside the industry, a playing career, a coaching badge, an agency desk. Mine began somewhere else entirely: with a question of fairness. Years ago, I encountered the case of a talented boxer who was denied a professional licence in the UK for one reason only, he lived with Type 1 diabetes. The medical evidence supported his ability to compete safely, yet the system said no. That struck me as an injustice worth fighting, and I committed myself to the campaign.

It took five years of persistent advocacy, expert evidence, and refusal to accept a closed door. The campaign ultimately succeeded, securing the first professional boxing licence ever granted to a boxer with Type 1 diabetes in the United Kingdom. That landmark changed one athlete's life, opened a path for others, and, though I did not fully realise it at the time, set the direction for my own work in sport: using influence, persistence, and organisation to expand who gets to compete.

Vice President of IFA7 for the UK and UAE

Today, my most prominent formal role in sport is as Vice President of IFA7, the International 7-a-Side Football Association, with responsibility spanning the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. IFA7 governs and grows the seven-a-side format internationally, a version of football that is faster, more accessible, and easier to organise than the eleven-a-side game, making it a powerful vehicle for grassroots participation and international competition alike.

My responsibilities reflect the two markets I know best. In the UK, the focus is on building structures, leagues, partnerships, and pathways that give the format a durable foundation. In the UAE, the opportunity is to align the sport's growth with a nation that has made sport a strategic pillar of its development, investing in facilities, events, and community participation at remarkable pace. Bridging these two footballing cultures, and connecting the institutional strengths of each, is precisely the kind of cross-border work that runs through everything I do, as you can see across my wider portfolio of roles.

The Connective Tissue: Management as Advocacy

People sometimes ask how sports management fits alongside my advisory work in investment, energy, and diplomacy. The honest answer is that they are the same discipline applied to different arenas. Sports management, done properly, is about building institutions people can trust, opening doors for talent that lacks connections, and negotiating partnerships across borders and cultures. Those are exactly the skills required in government advisory and international business, and exactly the skills I have exercised for years across the UK, UAE, and Pakistan.

My philosophy in sport rests on three commitments. First, access: talent is distributed everywhere, but opportunity is not, and governance should close that gap rather than widen it. Second, integrity: sport earns its unique place in society only when its institutions are run transparently and fairly. Third, ambition: communities and countries should not be afraid to think big about what sport can do for them, economically, socially, and diplomatically.

Why Sport Deserves Serious People

It would be easy to treat sport as the lighter side of a portfolio otherwise concerned with capital flows and energy corridors. I take the opposite view. Sport reaches people that policy cannot. A functioning league changes how young people spend their evenings; an inclusive licensing decision changes what a child with a chronic condition believes is possible; an international tournament builds bridges between countries more effectively than most communiqués.

That is why I give sports management the same seriousness I give a boardroom or a ministry. The five-year boxing campaign taught me that sporting institutions respond to well-organised, well-evidenced, persistent advocacy, and that the victories, when they come, are among the most meaningful available in public life.

What Comes Next

Alongside the federation role, I continue to mentor individuals navigating the sports industry, athletes weighing decisions, organisers building competitions, and administrators learning governance. Much of the most valuable work in sport happens quietly, in conversations that never make an announcement.

The years ahead will see IFA7 expand its footprint, deepen its UK and UAE operations, and, I hope, demonstrate what modern, accessible football governance looks like. I share updates on this work regularly in my news section, and you can find photographs from events and engagements in the gallery. For partnership enquiries in sport, clubs, sponsors, facilities, or federations, the best route is the contact page. Sport has given me some of the proudest moments of my career, and I intend to keep repaying that debt.