Andrea Traverso

In charge of the development of the UEFA Club Licensing system in 2001, he led the implementation of this innovative project across all 55 member associations. Today club licensing is in force in 55 national associations and more than 1500 clubs are now subject to club licensing on an annual basis.
Club licensing promoted financial and legal transparency, enhanced standards in the football administrative practice and promoted principles of good governance as widely recognized by stakeholders and European institutions. Its success in Europe led FIFA to launch its implementation on a global scale by the end of 2016.


In 2008, he led the development of the financial fair play rules that are aimed at encouraging clubs to responsible spending while promoting investments in the education of youths and infrastructure and at protecting the sustainability of European club football in the long run. Following the implementation of these regulations, European club losses decreased significantly to achieve a break-even position, down from €1.7bn just a few years ago.


In 2019 he was appointed as Financial Sustainability & Research Director. In his new role, he led the creation and growth of the UEFA intelligence centre consisting in the largest footballing database existing in the football industry. He further set up the UEFA innovation Hub aimed at fostering a culture of innovation, cross transversal cooperation, start-ups incubation within UEFA and across all UEFA stakeholders. In 2022 he led the consultation process and development of the new Financial Sustainability rules aimed at promoting financial sustainability across the industry.
In 2019, he also led the development of the UEFA corporate strategy 2019-2024.


In addition to his role at UEFA, he regularly lectures in various Sports Masters programmes and he was appointed President of the Swiss Innovation think tank “ThinkSport”.