Certainly, the situation is dire today at Rugby Nice Côte d’Azur, and the survival of a club and consequently its favorite sport in the Côte d’Azur region is hanging by a thread. However, as the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining, and now is the time to think about better and more intelligent club management.
Indeed, while RNCA is doing its job on the field despite the current commotion, behind the scenes things have been falling apart, leading to a rather moribund SASP but above all, a struggling club. Erratic management, poor choices, lack of image… The reasons are numerous and the deficiencies are equally significant within the Nice rugby club, as they sometimes are in other local sports associations. One may become a club leader but certainly not an accountant, marketer, or IT specialist!
So, without speaking of interference of any kind, wouldn’t it be wise for local authorities who manage subsidies for sports associations to be proactive rather than reactive? Why not offer clubs genuine support throughout the year and, perhaps, more specifically in organizing events? Technical, administrative, events-related, or marketing advice, provided by a technical committee composed of experts in each of these fields, would not be too much for the often-volunteer leaders who animate Nice’s sports scene.
Managing a club is something to be learned like anything else. Project management, partnerships and sponsors, internal and external communication, the club’s image, or the relationship with all the local authorities… These are things that cannot be improvised, and while one can be a good president, treasurer, or secretary, mastering and excelling at all these skills is challenging, if not impossible. Yet, solutions exist and wouldn’t require a huge budget (sometimes even none) to implement.
Take, for example, the pooling of costs. Today, every club and sports association must comply with administrative and financial rights and duties as well as athletic and educational ones. From the accountant to the secretary, via the physical trainer, the same positions are found in nearly all clubs, representing a significant burden for each of them. Would it be utopian to imagine pooling some of these positions, thus allowing smaller structures to lighten their operational budgets and larger ones, for example, to create a real communication/marketing department necessary for their development? To date, OGC Nice is the only Nice club equipped with such a structure, efficiently managed by Virginie Rossetti.
Just as shops and craftsmen are grouped around a local office (OCAN), would it be so far-fetched to imagine Nice’s sports leaders, covering all sports, sitting around a table to share their experiences, both positive and negative, or their latest projects? United we stand, so perhaps it is time to unite these forces to build a shared sporting future instead of sometimes chasing after fleeting successes. In this respect, Montpellier might be a model to follow with elite clubs at the top of the rankings and a strong amateur sports scene!
Drastic times call for drastic measures! And since RNCA is seemingly in such bad shape, why not attempt the impossible? Because as is well known, impossible is not a word in Nice!
