How Como 1907's Playbook is Building A Global Brand
Yesterday at SXSW London we learnt about the rise of Como 1907, which isn’t just a club being built about great football led by former Arsenal and Barcelona legend Cesc Fabregas. It’s a story about football being used to create a global brand that fuses innovation, data, and identity with the emotional power of football, and local Italian community values.
For years and thanks to George Clooney, Lake Como has become known for luxury and beautiful mountain scenery, not league tables. Yet nestled in this iconic setting is one of the most ambitious projects in modern football. Under the leadership of Mirwan Suwarso and Head Coach Cesc Fàbregas, Como 1907 is turning what was a bankrupt fourth-tier Italian football club into a global brand with ambitions that stretch far beyond Serie A.
From Collapse to Credibility
When Suwarso and his Indonesian consortium, led by the Indonesian Hartono brothers, Robert Budi Hartono and Michael Bambang Hartono, took over Como 1907, the club had endured three bankruptcies in a decade. Trust was non-existent. "They didn’t want to work with us," Suwarso admits at the talk at Shoreditch Town Hall in London. The strategy began not with players, but people. The club paid for local COVID-19 vaccinations, revitalised shopfronts, and restored trust through grassroots economic initiatives. Retail partnerships alone jumped from under 200 when they arrived to nearly 500 in just 18 months.
Yet, Suwarso knew that to create a global brand, football was the hook that crossed international boundaries, which is why, despite the off-pitch innovation, the philosophy was crystal clear: football drives everything. "If you don't get it right on the pitch, you're just a fourth-division side," Suwarso said. Promotion to Serie B was the first step. With Fàbregas at the helm, the team plays with an attacking identity rooted in belief, structure, and tempo.
"If I lose, I want to lose on my terms," Fàbregas says. That means leading with vision, style, and conviction. The footballing product becomes not just a performance, but the nucleus of a brand.
Lake Como as a Football Brand
But this isn’t just about winning matches. Como 1907 is working to redefine what a football club can be, and now in Serie A, it has extra exposure to do just that.
Lake Como With nearly five million tourists visiting Lake Como each year, Suwarso sees an opportunity to make Como 1907 a "premium soccer tourism destination."
Look back at the early 1990s, and Lake Como received around 500,000 tourists each year. The number rose after George Clooney arrived in 2002, attracting over 1.3 million visitors in and around 2018, around the time Como 1907 was purchased, and due to the Global Expo that took place in Milan. Lifestyle campaigns associated with the club, as well as social media influencers, then pushed that number to a record high of five missions, confirming the vision and strategy adopted by Sarwaso and the club's owners.
For Como 1907, Football is the entry point to a curated lifestyle brand that includes lakefront villas for VIP matchday experiences and is repurposing them into 365-day hospitality offerings, including restaurants, clubs, and branded experiences.
To take the story to the world, the club has some locked in values from Cesc’s football career, together with Italian values that sell so well around the world and focus on famiglia, artigianalità, bellezza and dolce vita.
Data-Led Decisions, Human-Centred Strategy
While the vision is romantic, the execution is rigorous, with a focus on innovation that does not forget local or national heritage.
The club has invested heavily in data and analytics. On the football side, critical in building a global brand, recruitment blends instinct and information, identifying undervalued talent across Europe and giving them a platform to grow.
"We believe in data," says Fàbregas. But, unlike many clubs that lean into cold metrics, Como 1907 uses data to inform a broader emotional and cultural fit. Players aren't just signed for ability, they buy into the vision.
And with the experience of Suwarso in branding and the digital economy, he and his team looked at solutions where there were blockers. As an example, Italy’s ticketing systems for football games are notoriously opaque. Como saw this problem and built their own blockchain-powered platform. By minting NFTs tied to ticket issuance, they allow tourists to plan match attendance months in advance, solving a problem that conventional systems can’t.
This also combats touting, enhances security, and creates new value layers for fans. Forty percent of Como’s ticketing revenue now comes from international visitors.
The Brand Ecosystem: Beyond the Pitch
Como 1907 isn’t just a football club, it’s a multi-sector brand. The club has launched subsidiaries in:
Fashion: Branded apparel and lifestyle lines
Media: Storytelling and content creation
Craft Beer: Brewed with local Como silk
Education: A football academy for U.S. students
Each venture reinforces the core identity: premium, place-based, and emotionally resonant. It sells values and perceptions to the world. And that is built on having a strategic vision that the investors buy into financially.
Suwarso knew that there was going to be pushback when he arrived, which is why he published his personal email and responded directly to fan complaints. When fans demanded new paint at the stadium, they volunteered to do it themselves. That blend of humility and ambition sets Como apart. All set against local community values that people in Como and around the world can relate to.
A Model for Modern Football Leadership
What Como 1907 is building matters for football executives, marketers, and brand strategists. It offers a real-world template for:
Scaling legacy institutions with global potential
Integrating tourism, data, and sport
Operating with agility despite regulatory drag
Treating clubs as cultural products, not just teams
With a world-famous coach at Como (yes, the question about the rumours of a move to Inter was asked!), an iconic location, and a willingness to innovate on every level, Como 1907 is showing how the next generation of clubs can think beyond the pitch and win.
This isn’t football as usual. This is football as a future, where their associated brands can grow and deliver growth based on the values of Como the club, Como the region and Italy.
