From helping to stage two Olympic and Paralympic Games to working on the 2022 Women’s Euros and the 2024 Men’s Champions League Final, the career of Tom Warwick CA is enough to make any sport fan green with envy. The FA’s Senior Business Manager tells Ryan Herman about the best job he’s ever had – and his career advice for young CAs

When Tom Warwick CA was part of the team that delivered the London Olympics in 2012, Lord Deighton told him and his colleagues: “This is the best job you will ever have.”

It is easy to see why Deighton, who was Chief Executive of the organisation responsible for planning the Olympics and Paralympics, would have felt confident making such a bold statement. Many Britons now look back on the Games as a golden time for the nation. “It remains such an important moment in our cultural history,” says Warwick. “Everyone remembers where they were on Super Saturday.”

Yet it was the role he held some 10 years later that Warwick now describes as “the best ever”. As Project Leader for the 2022 Women’s Euros, he was involved from start to finish, beginning with his work on the bid to bring the tournament to England, through the ticketing strategy, selecting the venues and taking matches to parts of the country that had never hosted a major international sporting event.

“I was almost the first in and was last out to close the project,” Warwick recalls. “I saw it as my baby for five years. And to see the growth from where it started to where it finished… For example, we would have sold out Wembley, regardless of who was in the final, before the tournament had started. So, I believe that even if England hadn’t won, we would still have seen this massive impact as a result of the tournament.

“What an England win did was turbocharge everything. So, you have achievements like the letter sent by the England team to the government, which led the government to pledge that girls in England would get equal access to football in schools.

“Looking back, a lot of our focus before the tournament was on attendance and audience, because we looked at the circle of women’s football and it always came back to: how do we increase its profile? You can increase the profile of the athletes, you can get more people to watch it at home, you can have more money flowing into the game. But the thing that we had the most influence over was the stadiums and the attendances, because we led the ticketing strategy.

“It’s like organising a small city. None of that is possible without the money, or without managing the risk and opportunity against your budgets”

“We broke records in terms of the number of people coming to the tournament as a whole and the final is still the biggest attendance for any Euros match ever held, men or women.

“But what I’m more proud of is what has happened since with the legacy and impact. If we look at participation, how many new clubs have started and how many more are involved in the game from pre- to post-tournament… There are 2.4 million more women and girls playing football in England now [according to the official Uefa impact report].

“I have three girls. One is 10 and has joined Charlton Athletic’s emerging talent centre. I’ve also got twins, aged four, who will grow up in a world where it’s normal for girls to play football.”

Starting blocks

Warwick’s career journey began when he studied business administration at Bath University. “I found it fascinating to learn about different businesses, how they were founded, how they made money, their life cycle. And I had a dynamic professor. I came out of every lecture wanting to learn more,” he says.

Both of Warwick’s parents were qualified accountants and his knack for numbers, coupled with his fascination with how businesses work, made the CA qualification an obvious next step. He trained with EY, where his ambition post-qualification was to work abroad. So, working as Assurance Executive, he secured a secondment to the company’s Chicago office.

Around the same time a university friend who worked on the London 2012 bid said there was a role he should apply for. “I ended up doing the budget at the Olympics for temporary overlay,” says Warwick, “which is basically anything in a stadium which, if you tipped the stadium upside down, would fall out – tents, temporary seating, fences…. You have to become an expert in temporary overlay, because you have to understand the nature of the industry, the suppliers, how contracts are costed up.

“Being an assurance executive just teaches you how to get to grips with the understanding of a business. A lot of that comes down to speaking to people and feeling confident about asking questions so you understand more and learn more. And that was vital for working on the Olympics.”

Road to Rio

After London 2012, Warwick stayed with the Olympics, working as Budget Specialist on Rio 2016, before becoming Deputy General Manager for the Olympic Village – a mammoth logistical task. “You had 30,000 people in a 31-building village,” he says. “A third of those were athletes, plus all the team officials. We had the biggest temporary catering set-up in the world. There were laundries, a police station, a medical centre and gym. You had to provide access to guests and families, so it needs to be secure, with an appropriate access policy.

“It’s like organising a small city. None of that is possible without the money or without managing the risk and opportunity against your budgets. The CA training gives you that grounding. You can only have a successful delivery with sound financial planning which, in turn, means you can make good, informed decisions.”

One of the key lessons Warwick learned was the importance of immersing oneself in a culture: “I think I was the second expat to join Rio 2016. It was hard at the start because I didn’t know Portuguese – I very quickly learned I needed it simply to function day to day.

“Even though my Portuguese was bad at the beginning I would try speaking it whenever possible. Even if people replied in English they appreciated the fact that I was at least trying.

“By the end, I was delivering meetings and presentations to hundreds of people in Portuguese. Taking the time to learn a language and culture is something I would encourage people to do when working in a new place.”

“If you have a central body that’s willing to listen to people, and understands what success looks like for each partner, you can build a vision – that’s really powerful”

Many of Warwick’s London 2012 colleagues went on to deliver the 2015 Rugby World Cup, before subsequently moving to the FA. Although Warwick had followed a different path, his strong network meant he was able to build up an extensive knowledge of the organisation before joining in 2017.

“It helped having people there that I could talk to about the FA and the culture, because maybe looking in from the outside, the FA does so much good work across a number of divisions. But at the time, it didn’t have a central project management office that brings everything together, that allows the senior management team to make informed decisions that have benefits across all those divisions, rather than just working in silos. Being involved in that process was really interesting.”

Warwick has also worked on this year’s Men’s Champions League Final and the 2020 Men’s Euros (held in 2021 because of the pandemic), and will play an integral part in delivering the Men’s 2028 Euros that will be played across the UK and Ireland.

“There are a plethora of stakeholders, whether that’s stadiums, host cities, government authorities, transport providers, airports, agencies, etc.

“What I saw with the Women’s Euros is that no one asked the question: ‘How much does it cost? What’s in it for me?’ It was always, like, ‘We want to help. How can we help? What can we do?’ And that mindset is incredible.

“If you have an organisation that’s willing to listen to people, and understands what success looks like for each partner, you can build a vision. If everyone is working towards the same objectives, that’s really powerful. I’m sure that will be the case with 2028.”

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