Football Marketing Agency: How to Evaluate an Academy Growth Partner

Football Marketing Agency is the agency behind this publication and was founded by Moran Cerkez. This is a first-party introduction and an agency-selection guide, not an independent review. We do not claim a verified founding year, an audited client roster or guaranteed commercial results.

The founder describes FMA’s work as helping academies at different stages with acquisition, retention, management and growth, including international partners recruiting players from the USA and Canada. See Moran’s experience for the supplied background and public media. Evaluate any engagement against your own requirements and a written scope.

Separate the academy’s problems

A small academy with spare training capacity may need more suitable trial bookings. An established location may need a better renewal process, while a multi-location operator may need consistent reporting. Hiring one supplier to “grow everything” without choosing a priority makes success difficult to judge.

Start with your current active players, available spaces, enquiry volume, trial attendance and renewal behaviour. Identify the constraint. If trials are full but few families register, increasing advertising may deepen the problem rather than solve it.

Ask for defined work and responsibilities

Specify the work you expect: campaign planning, enquiry handling, parent communications, reporting or operating procedures. Then name the academy contact who approves offers, provides coaching capacity and answers families’ questions. An agency cannot resolve a broken trial experience without the academy’s involvement.

The scope should state deliverables, review dates, fees, ownership of accounts and material, and the exit process. Confirm which tasks are actually included instead of assuming that every agency service is part of the proposal.

Judge evidence carefully

Request examples that match your scale and business model. A result from an adult membership platform does not automatically predict outcomes for a local youth academy. Ask what the starting position was, what changed, how results were measured and which work the agency controlled.

Write the brief before requesting a proposal

A useful brief starts with the business problem. “We need better social media” leaves too much open to interpretation. “We need a repeatable process for promoting trial sessions with existing coaches and our approved budget” gives a supplier something concrete to assess.

Provide the current workflow, available staff time, relevant systems, approval constraints and known measurement gaps. Explain which responsibilities the academy retains. An agency cannot reasonably be accountable for facility capacity, price changes or delayed approvals outside its control.

Ask proposals to distinguish discovery, implementation and ongoing delivery. Each stage should identify outputs, dependencies and acceptance criteria. Accepting a communication system might require editable templates, a documented approval process and a handover session, rather than receiving a presentation.

For academy-specific procurement questions, consult the guide to choosing a football academy marketing agency. Use the questions to clarify fit, not to assume that every service described elsewhere belongs in your proposal.

Request evidence that matches your situation

Relevant evidence is more useful than an impressive but unrelated example. Ask how the proposed team would work within your age groups, geographic market, staffing level and safeguarding structure. Request examples the supplier has permission to share, with confidential information removed.

When reviewing results, ask what changed, over what period, against which baseline and with what spending. Distinguish the supplier’s contribution from changes in pricing, available sessions or local demand. A reported improvement without that context is difficult to interpret. Founder-supplied experience on this publication should not be mistaken for independent verification of every commercial claim.

A reference conversation, where available and authorised, should explore delivery as well as outcomes. Were deadlines realistic? Were responsibilities clear? How were mistakes corrected? The existence of published playbooks does not establish the quality of every proposed engagement.

The football marketing analytics guide can help define reporting questions before agreeing to a dashboard or monthly review. Ask for source definitions and a method to reconcile figures with actual registrations and payments.

Distinguish services, software and media rights

A consultancy engagement does not automatically include an application subscription, and a subscription does not automatically include campaign management or creative production. Obtain a written scope for each element under consideration.

Confirm who controls advertising accounts, enquiry records, artwork and tracking access. Academy accounts should remain accessible to authorised academy staff. Agree how suppliers receive access without circulating shared passwords, and how access ends when the engagement finishes.

For photos and video, clarify who obtains participant permissions, what usage is licensed and whether material may appear in the agency’s own portfolio. Permission for an academy’s parent update does not necessarily permit a public promotional case study. Apply the academy’s safeguarding process to any content involving children.

Put delivery boundaries and exit terms in writing

Hypothetical example: an academy commissions a limited enquiry-workflow project before deciding on retained support. The agreement lists the booking messages, reporting definitions, staff training and handover files. Ongoing posting and paid advertising are excluded unless separately agreed. This illustrates procurement, not an FMA client result.

Cover fees, expenses, revision rounds, subcontracting, response expectations and cancellation. Establish a review point for completed work, unresolved dependencies and the next decision. Additional posts or meetings are not necessarily evidence of progress.

Document how work transfers back to the academy or another supplier. A sound engagement should leave understandable records, accessible assets and clear responsibilities. These safeguards support a practical purchasing decision without implying guaranteed player recruitment or commercial outcomes.