Effectiveness evaluation and development of recommendations for organizational structure of VOC for UEFA Euro 2020 with the example of FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia

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Introduction

The study represents recommendations' development for Venue Operational Center (VOC) of “Saint Petersburg” stadium for holding matches during UEFA EURO 2020 on the base of analysis of mega-event FIFA Football World Cup 2018 (FWC 2018) in Russia. Saint Petersburg as one of twelve cities taking part in UEFA European Football Championship (EURO 2020) aims to be awarded with the status of “the best hosting city”. One way of reaching this status is to make the operational activities of the stadium effective. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether the VOC of St. Petersburg was valid or not and retrieve acceptable practices of different hosting stadiums of FWC 2018 for the forthcoming championship. The bachelors' thesis is based on the analyses of corporate documentation, observations, interviews and benchmarking. The suggestions proposed in this paper can provide a guideline for improvements in VOC of “Saint Petersburg”.

On December 6, 2012 at meeting in Lausanne, Executive Committee of UEFA announced that EURO 2020 would take place in 12 various cities of European continent (UEFA Administration Report, 2014). This decision was taken by the fact that EURO 2020 would be the 60th anniversary from the moment of holding the first European football championship. Moreover, that is the first time in history when the football championship would be held more than in two host nations. Russia is included in the list of host nations and “Saint Petersburg” stadium is the place where the matches would be held.

According to the Bid Book of UEFA EURO 2020 (p.62), there are three actors involved in the organization EURO 2020: host city authorities, the Football Union of Russia (FUR) and St. Petersburg stadium's operator. The FUR has founded a company for European football championship organization, which is called “Local Organizational Structure UEFA EURO 2020” (LOS). All arrangements, which were accepted within the European football championship, were delegated from FUR to LOS.

LOS is a state autonomous non-commercial organization, which is responsible for planning, organization and holding four football matches during EURO 2020. According to the meeting protocol of ANO “Local Organizational Structure UEFA EURO 2020” and LLC “Zenit-Arena” of 25.04.2019, the main goals of LOS are:

* Holding matches of EURO 2020 with superlative quality;

* Organization of the unforgettable atmosphere of hospitality for all client groups;

* Make St. Petersburg achieve the status of the best host city of EURO 2020.

One of the main goals of LOS is to be awarded the status of "the best hosting city". One way of reaching this status is to make the operational activities of the stadium effective.

Host stadium is a precious place where all the spectators and fans are eager to get. The operational processes of the stadium are coordinated and supervised by the Venue Managers of LOC from the stadium's Venue Operational Center (VOC). For today, Russian LOC UEFA EURO 2020 has not established and certified the organizational structure of VOC.

Russia already has experience in organizing international football mega-events, one of them was FIFA World Cup 2018 (FWC) and Confederations Cup 2017. There were 12 cities and 12 venues hosting the project. In each city, where the matches were held during this event, VOCs organizational structures were arranged variously. The convenience of working conditions for Venue Coordinators has a straight impact on the effectiveness of the stadium's operational processes.

According to the interviews with Venue Managers of FWC 2018 (Appendices 6), sports tournaments are organized on the base of “legacy" left after the previous mega-event. This practices also would be used in case of organization UEFA EURO 2020, thus, VOC of “Saint Petersburg” would be arranged on the principles of FWC 2018. Nowadays, the Deputy Stadium Liaison Manager affirms that for EURO 2020, LOS would bring changes the organizational structure of VOC in order to make it efficient. This paper is oriented on the issues' detection, which might be improved in VOC for coming matches. Therefore, the research problem is next, “the necessity of improvements in the organizational structure of “Saint Petersburg” stadium's VOC for UEFA EURO 2020". Hence, the next research question appears "Which actions should be undertaken in order to improve the VOC's organizational structure for UEFA EURO 2020?"

The subject of this research is UEFA and FIFA football matches, and the object is VOC's organizational structure of “Saint Petersburg” stadium.

Basing on the on expert's opinion, observations and documentation next hypothesis is tested:

“Operational processes of “Saint Petersburg” stadium were valid during the FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia.”

The research objective of this paper is to determine issues of VOC organizational structure, which require to be improved and introduce recommendations for them. In order to reach the aim, it was necessary to understand whether discovered practice worth to be recommended or not. Another goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of VOC during the FWC 2018. The recommendations developed for the VOC's organizational structure were based on the comparative analysis of "Saint Petersburg" and other hosting stadiums' experiences during the FWC 2018. The suggested improvements for “Saint Petersburg” VOC's organizational structure were derived out of the observations during the matches and experts' interviews. Therefore, the research purpose type is exploratory.

For reaching the above-mentioned practical objective and answering the research question following tasks were accomplished:

1. To conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews with heads of host stadiums, who had coordinated operational processes, on matches of FIFA World Cup 2018;

2. To conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews with managers of functions, who had worked in VOC, on matches of FIFA World Cup 2018;

3. To analyze by the method of observations and interviews, the work of “Saint Petersburg” stadium VOC during the match days;

4. To analyze corporate documents of the LOS during the internship;

5. To conduct benchmarking analysis on the base of collected interviews;

6. To approve or disapprove hypothesis on the base of studied materials;

7. To formulate the recommendations for VOC organizational structure improvements for UEFA EURO 2020;

8. To compare schemes of seating chats of VOC among different host stadiums;

9. To evidentiate all department representatives who have to present in VOC during match days;

10. To develop recommendations for future research.

The performed tasks have helped to obtain the research objective and fulfil the research problem. In the progress of this thesis, the hypothesis was approved in terms of “FIFA World Cup Debrief 2018” and classical meaning of word “effectiveness”. In the interview (Appendices 6), the Venue Manager has described two main criteria by with stadium “Saint Petersburg” was judged as the best one in operations during the FWC 2018. The research question was answered in the section “description of the results" with a detailed description of possible improvements of VOC's organisational structure.

The practical significance of this paper resides in the fact that LOS would be able to applicate the introduced recommendations in the development of the new organizational structure of “Saint Petersburg” stadium's VOC for EURO 2020. The best practices applicable for the VOC of “Saint Petersburg”, which were used by managers of stadiums “Luzhniki”, “Rostov Arena” and “Fisht” were described in the section “description of the results”.

All host cities are competing for gaining the name of “Best host city”, which is rewarded by the UEFA. One of LOS's goals is to reach this award, thus, additionally with the primary goal of this research, there were introduced ideas that could increase the competitiveness of Saint Petersburg among other host cities. The introduced variants for increasing competitiveness of Russia were made on the base of conducted interviews, and competitive analysis of host cities.

1. Theoretical foundation

operational benchmarking manager

The bachelors' thesis is developed for the needs of LOS UEFA EURO 2020 on the experience of “Local Organizing Committee FIFA World Cup 2018” (LOC). First of all, it is necessary to explore about two international organizations that were requisitioners of great football mega-events in Russia.

1.1 FIFA & UEFA and LOC & LOS

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded in Paris on 21 May 1904. For today, the international football organization is oriented on the promotion of football game, protection its integrity and bring the game to all members of the football community regardless of gender, orientation, creed or ethnicity (FIFA: our strategy, 2019). Its General Secretariat is responsible for implementing the decisions of the Executive Committee, FIFA's finances, international relations, the organization of the FIFA World Cup™, and other FIFA football competitions (Home of FIFA, 2019).

The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) was founded in Basel on 15 June 1954. The union is the governing body of European football and is the patron-organization for fifty-five national football associations in Europe. It is a continental confederation, which is under the governance of the world football governing body FIFA (What UEFA does, 2019).

The official webpage of FIFA provides open corporate documents with the information about acquirements and regulations for the potential countries going to participate and for those who already participate. In this paper are used continuously some professional terms identified in FIFA Stadium Safety and Security Regulations (2013).

“FIFA event: Subject to the provisions contained herein, any match, tournament or competition being played under the direct operational administration of FIFA.”

“Host nation: The country in which a FIFA event is being held.”

“Event organizer: The entity organizing a FIFA event, such as the LOC, association, confederation or any other agency.”

"LOC: Local Organizing Committee." This committee consists of experts representing the host nation, who must be approved and further supervised by FIFA.

"VOC: A venue operation centre (VOC) is a designated room or area within the stadium from which all safety and security operations are controlled and managed". In this centre during the match day should present all the head managers of stadium operational functions and obligatory representatives of all the safety and security functions.

In the same document, it is also stated that LOCs are responsible for all taken measures in order to provide proper safety and security at the stadium. LOCs are responsible for the behaviour and competence of the persons entrusted with the organization of a FIFA event.

LOC had a corporate document “Operational plan of the stadium "Saint Petersburg” (2017), where were introduced some more professional terms also used in this research paper:

“VCC” - venue coordination centre (VCC), which is responsible for incident tracking during the match days and non-match days. The primary function of this centre is to insert the information about incidents occurring at the stadium, assign time limits for incident liquidation and set up the leader responsible for incident solving.

“FBES” - Fire Brigade and Emergency Services.

“FPS” - Federal Protective Service.

“FSB” - Federal Security Bureau.

“MIA” - Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“CCTV” - Closed Circuit Television.

“ROC” - Regional operational Center (ROC) is a place where are taken decisions in terms of the host city or transmitted to a higher level in Moscow.

“CCTV Operators” - were employees who were responsible for tracking situations at the stadium through video cameras.

“DRO” - daily running orders. It is a schedule with obligatory events, which would take place at the stadium. This plan is given to all managers of functions at morning briefings.

“VC” - Venue Coordinator / Venue Manager.

“FIFA VC” - A Venue Coordinator from FIFA is a person who is observing operational processes on match days and takes part in the decision-making processes of VOC.

“Stadium Operator” is a football club, which has officially present enjoyment for the stadium.

"Video-wall" is construction with screens displaying a unique picture transmitting from cameras.

“Seating chart” is a corporate document where is written all the stuff, which should present in VOC in match days. There are also indicated all the seats for employees and arranged in a scheme.

"The last mile" - is one-mile territory surrounding the stadium from the outside.

“Stadium Constituent Groups - include a member of associations and sponsors and the general public.” These representatives of all focus groups that present temporary during the championship in order to fulfil their functions on the match. In this list are included representatives of players with their technical teams, broadcast, media, marketing, spectators services etc.



Figure 1. Organizational structure of the Moscow office

Figure 2. Organizational structure of the Moscow office

According to the “Report of proceedings at the meeting of “LOS UEFA EURO 2020” and LLS “Zenit Arena” (25.04.2019), LOS has matrix organizational structure with 26 functions and two offices in Moscow ( Figure 1) and Saint Petersburg (Figure 2). According to the upper mentioned corporate meeting, most of the functions would be coordinated by FIFA.

1.2 Effectiveness evaluation

The bachelor thesis includes analyses regarding the effectiveness evaluation of VOC during the FWC 2018.

M.E. Porter (1996) has defined the classical term of operational effectiveness “Being operationally effective is to perform the same activities better than competitors perform them. The author emphasized the fact that operational effectiveness “refers to any number of practices that allow a company to better utilize its inputs by” (Strategy for Business, 1996, p. 10-12).

Effectiveness is a quality factor, which cannot be measured. However, a process might be named as an effective one if its results were the most fruitful among rivals in terms of certain criteria by which the concrete process was evaluated.

Thus, in terms of this paper, the word - “effectiveness” means operational process performance recognized as the best one among all 12 stadiums during the FWC 2018.

As it was mentioned above, in the classical understanding of term "effectiveness" it is impossible to measure it. Thus, the word "evaluation" would not refer to any scale or table with a variation with levels of effectiveness, but would have only two variants of evaluation:

· Valid - what means that operational processes of the stadium have been recognized as the best among rivals;

· Non-effective - what means that the operational processes have not been recognized as the best among rivals.

In the context of this paper term - "organizational structure" means the way of VOC arrangement. Here are implicated all the details about VOC's organization, including used services and equipment, working atmosphere, presented stuff, and other peculiarities influencing on employees comfort.

VOC is a place where are gathered all managers of functions coordinating the operational process of the stadium. All primary decisions are made here, and all the order for execution are given from here. Thus, the effectiveness of VOC at some level might be equated with operational effectiveness of the stadium “Saint Petersburg”.

After the meeting of FIFA representatives and members of LOC from “Saint Petersburg” stadium was published a corporate document “FIFA world cup debrief” (25.07.2018). It reflects a list of reasons why the temporary constructions and operational activity of "Saint Petersburg" stadium were recognized the best among all the host stadiums at FIFA FWC 2018. In this document are included two decisions of “Saint Petersburg” Venue Manager concerning VOC's organization. One of these decisions was to move VCC from ROC to VOC what has simplified the information transmission about incidents from VCC to managers of functions. The second one was to move the Manager of "last mile volunteers" to VOC, which has facilitated one more channel of information. Both of these decisions have accelerated processes of decision-making, information transmission and order execution. What approves the fact that operational processes managed from VOC of Saint Petersburg" stadium worth to be evaluated as - useful.

1.3 Benchmarking

This research is developed on benchmarking analysis. According to Drew S. A. . (1997) and Camp R.C. (1989), benchmarking is a legal instrument to study from competitors' experience and inherit their best practices in order to improve and obtain new techniques. This instrument is likely to be used in business processes and total quality management implementations. Drew S. A. W. (1997) is dividing benchmarking of the object into three general categories:

* Process, which helps to compare operations, work practices and business processes.

* Product or service, which serves for comparing product or service offers.

* Strategic, which assists to compare organizational structures, management practices and business strategies.

In this research is used benchmarking analysis of process because the object, which was benchmarked is - organizational practices of host stadiums during FWC 2018.

Carpinetti L. C. R. and Alexandre M. de Melo, (2002) also emphasize four groups of benchmarking analysis basing on the type of partners:

* Internal, which helps to compare the performance of units or departments in the same company. In this case, there might be compared with similar products or services in related business elements.

* Competitive supports contrast of performance with a direct product competitor. The comparison analyzes might include the contrast of products or services and business processes.

* Functional, which serves for a comparison of specific function with the best practices. There is an adaptation of process benchmarking comparing a particular business function in two or more companies of one industry.

* Generic, which assists in identifying the best practice ignoring industry of specialization. This type works almost in the same way as to functional benchmarking except the primary purpose. The goal here is to conduct comparison analyze with the best in the class without any reference to industry.

This research has a functional type of benchmarking partners because the comparison analyze is made on the base of several host stadium's experiences in the same sphere of VOC's organization.

In order to follow a benchmarking strategy, there has been developed a common five steps plan (Luiz C.R. Carpinetti, Alexandre M. de Melo, (2002):

* Step 1: to detect the object of study, which is a benchmarking object;

* Step 2: to select the leading competitor, which is a benchmarking partner;

* Step 3: to collect and analyze data for benchmarking;

* Step 4: to establish performance scopes for reaching them;

* Step 5: to implement inventions and control results.

In this bachelors' thesis were used the first four steps of the above-mentioned plan. If the results of this research were applicable for LOS EURO 2020, the fifth step would be accomplished as well as four previous.

1.4 Sport mega -events

Further in, it is necessary to understand what is a spot mega-event. This research takes into consideration previous FIFA World Cup in Russia 2018 and upcoming UEFA Euro 2020, which are supposed to be two mega-events.

The word combination `mega-event' has appeared in the academic field indeed in the conference `The Role and Impact of Mega-Events and Attractions on Regional and National Tourism Development' (Marris, T.1987). During that period, wide-ranging discussions were held because scholars were trying to distinguish what would turn an event into a mega-event. The first common understanding of mega-events introduced Ritchie (1984) identifying it as tourist attractions, which is additionally evident from the subject's title of the conference.

Nowadays, more relevant definitions and measurement of the mega-event term is given. Martin Müller (2015) defines mega-events referring to four main factors, which should be exceeded in order to reach the status of "mega". Those parameters include:

* A large number of visitors, which should reach three million tickets sold;

* A massive mediated reach, which should overcome in broadcast revenue two billion USD;

* Large costs, more than USD 10 billion in total costs;

* Significant impacts on the built environment and the population, which should exceed USD 10 billion in capital investment.

Nevertheless, the author posits the fact that features mentioned above might be considered as desirable elements but not obligatory in order to turn events into mega-events. Muller provides some examples of international level events, which did not reach the parameters but still were included into the list of mega-events, namely, the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the World Cups 2014 in Brazil, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, the European Capital of Culture etc.

In addition to upper mentioned, obviously, sport mega-events are some of the great several days or even more lasting sport events such as the Olympic Games or FIFA World Cups.

Following all criteria as mentioned above, FIFA World Cup 2018 is a mega-event. According to FIFA there were allocated almost 2,5 million tickets for football spectators all around the world (FIFA-ticketing, 2018). Estimated cost for Russia on FIFA FWC for the tournament has overcome 11.6 billion USD, and television broadcast rights revenue for FIFA has exceeded 3 billion USD (K. Badenhausen, 2018).

1.5 GAP

History shows that all the previous FWC and UEFA games were captured in margins of one or two front-line host nations. Nevertheless, holding such a great football mega-event is challenging enough, as it requires a colossal amount of infrastructural reconstructions, investments and regulation correspondence, it was organized in terms of one or two countries. Thus, the UEFA Euro 2020 will be unique and will differ a lot from all the previous experience of FIFA and UEFA championships. On upcoming sixty-year jubilee, competitions will take place in twelve different hosting nations all around Europe (All you need to know about UEFA EURO 2020, 2019).

On the one hand, this plan will bring the international football championship on a new level, but on the other hand, the whole organizational part would be complicated as ever never before. D. Wong & S. Chadwick (2017) published research about risks relating to previous FIFA football tournaments, namely - 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany; 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa and the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil. The authors emphasize a variety of risks associated with material and non-material values, namely - long-term reputational damages, safety and security incidents, football violence, protests, budget over-spends, operational failures and protests. Also, based on Russian FWC experience it is necessary to add boycotts of the tournament, which originated from UK politics and caused the first FWC since 1938 without UK referees (Guardian sport, 2018).

In addition to above-mentioned risks, there might occur even more threats because host nations will have to deal with each other during the organization processes and put away all the political, economic, cultural and historical inconsistencies. In order to anticipate and prevent potential risks at the hosting stadiums, the operations during the tournament should be perfectly organized under the same requirements from UEFA.

Stadium during sport mega-events is the most crucial part, where present football players, dozens of thousands of spectators, broadcast, media, SMM and other constituent groups depend on the stadium's operational activity. Thus, here might occur next gap: insufficient organization of VOC can cause problems in information transition and decision-making process.

According to the “Z theory” (Ouchi, W. G., & Jaeger, A. M., 1978) if the organization is attentive to its employees and makes their working conditions as comfortable as it is possible that the employees would bring the company to success. Consequently, the organizational structure of VOC must be as comfortable as it is possible for its stuff, and it would coordinate the stadium's operation successfully.

2. Statement of the research question

In accordance with the research question - “Which actions should be undertaken in order to improve the VOC's organizational structure for UEFA EURO 2020?" appears objective, which corresponds to previously mentioned requirements. Thus, the research objective of this paper is next "to determine issues of VOC organizational structure, which might be improved and introduce recommendations for them".

In order to achieve this objective, it was necessary to conduct an in-depth and detailed comparative analysis of the organizational structure of St. Petersburg's stadium VOC and others. Venue Managers are those people who coordinate all the operational processes of the stadium. Each of them does it in their way adapting the organizational structure following their needs, habits and conditions. Also, together with Venue Managers work managers of functions, who control the work of their specific operational department from VOC. These people were experts expressing their opinion about the proposed topic of the research. These two groups of people were asked about all the details in of VOC organizational structure and their best practices or decisions that were used.

For reaching the research objective, it was necessary to evaluate whether discovered practice worth to be recommended for implementation in VOC or not. Firstly, it was necessary to understand if the operational work of "Saint Petersburg" stadium has been recognized as useful during the FWC 2018. However, if it was named as an effective one than it would be necessary to compare the decisions of other managers in the same field and leave without changes, those practices that were named the most effective. For identifying whether a practice should be recommended or not, the next hypothesis was tested: “Operational processes of “Saint Petersburg” stadium were valid during the FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia.” The upper mentioned hypothesis was tested basing on the on expert's opinion and literature review. According to the “FIFA World Cup Debrief” (25.07.2018), operational processes organization of “Saint Petersburg” stadium was recognized as the best one during the FWC 2018. Two practices used in VOC were emphasized in the document:

One of them was to move VCC from ROC to VOC what has simplified the information transmission about occurring incidents from VCC to managers of functions. Another appreciated decision was to move the Manager of “last mile Volunteers" to VOC, which has facilitated one more channel of information. With this decision last mile Volunteer's Manager was reporting other functions' managers about the situation out of the stadium, influencing it and participating in the decision-making process.

Collected data was analyzed through qualitative methods of observation, interviews, and corporate documentation analyses.

The first method was chosen for the fact that before this bachelor thesis has started the researcher had an internship in LOC 2018 and has been observing the operational work of VOC in Saint Petersburg during the FIFA World Cup 2018. Every match day was described in a diary with all the detail about the processes happening in VOC. One of these days' observation was allowed to be presented in this thesis by LOC. During that period the researcher also has examined some corporate database about the stadium and its regulation. On the end of the internship, LOC stuff and the researcher came up with the idea of introducing some improvements for future games EURO 2020 on the base of FWC 2018. With this goal, this bachelors thesis has been developed. Further, the researcher has been taking an internship in LOS EURO 2020 and fulfilling the goal of developing recommendations for VOC on the base of interviews, corporate material, and benchmarking analyses. All the methods of collection and analyzing data were supervised by LOS internship adviser and corrected following practical applicability of the research.

The practical significance of this work is in the improvement of the organizational structure of VOC what would influence on work efficiency of VOC stuff on UEFA EURO 2020. This research requires details, which can be discovered only by qualitative methods of data analyses.

The quantitative method would not take into account some internal factors, which impact on the quality of working atmosphere, information transmission and decision-making process. Moreover, quantitative analyze is not enough for making accurate conclusions only on data reflecting numbers.

If the introduced changes would be applied in the VOC in “Saint Petersburg” logically it should consequently improve the work of those who are there and make decisions. This research takes into account a variety of factors, which would enhance the working conditions of VOC. According to the William Ouchi and his Z theory (Ouchi, W. G., & Jaeger, A. M. 1978) if the organization is attentive to its employees and makes their working conditions as comfortable as it is possible that the employees would bring the company to success. Thus, VOC's organizational structure should be improved what can bring LOS to the award of “best hosting city”. Quantitative data analysis could take into account statistical data about the incidents that were registered during the match days, which might be compared with the time of problem solving. Nevertheless, that would be only statistical analyze which would not take into account the degree, scale and uniqueness of incident, the atmosphere and conditions of the decision-making process, resources, which managers had at that moment. In a nutshell, qualitatively analyze oriented on the stadium' VOC improvement is more representative in case of this research.

3. Methodology

The research purpose of this paper is to develop recommendations in order to improve the organizational structure of VOC for UEFA EURO 2020. This goal was accomplished by conducting qualitative analyses of functions' managers in “Saint Petersburg” VOC and other hos stadiums managers' experience. These two groups of experts had these positions during FIFA World Cup 2018. The recommendations development for “Saint Petersburg” VOC organizational structure was derived out of the benchmarking analyses, in-depth interviews with experts and observations. Another aim of the paper was to evaluate whether VOC of "Saint Petersburg" was active or not. The evaluation of VOC's effectiveness was confirmed in “FIFA World Cup Debrief 2018” and interview with Venue Manager of “Saint Petersburg” stadium (Appendices 6). VC has described two main criteria, which FIFA has estimated and further named the stadium effective in operations.

For conducting this research, data sources and collection included three main qualitative methods, namely: interviews, observation and corporate documentation analyses.

Interviews

There were conducted nine in-depth semi-structured interviews with experts, namely Managers of Stadiums: “Saint Petersburg”, “Luzhniki”, “Rostov Arena”, “Fisht” and also were interviewed Managers of Functions: VCC, CCTV operators, Fire Brigade and Emergency Services, Deputy Venue Coordinator and FIFA Venue Coordinator of “Saint Petersburg” stadium (Appendices 6). All the upper mentioned managers of stadiums and functions were coordinating operational processes from VOCs. The interviews' conduction has helped to understand communication, performed processes, presented equipment and other details compounding the operational structure of VOC. The interviews were gathered through direct face-to-face conversations or through video conference if the person was out the St. Petersburg city. In the progress of the in-depth interview collection, there were identified variety of occurring problems and proposed actions in order to solve them. Also, this method has helped to identify all the variables influencing VOC operational processes and decision-making processes, which were taken into consideration in the research.

Observation

The observations were conducted by the direct presence and keeping a diary with notes about VOC's operations during the match days (Appendices 3). The process of observation has allowed estimating the territory, equipment, employees, decision-making processes, command execution and working atmosphere in the VOC of "Saint Petersburg adequately". Thus, the method made researcher orientate and understand whether a practice used in the other stadium was applicable or not. Each match day was captured with a unique experience as the operational processes were organized differently basing on the atmosphere that has arisen in the bowl. Stadium atmosphere was influenced by the number of spectators, their emotional premises and the human factor. Basing on these criteria was determined the intensiveness of operational processes in VOC and number of people integrated into this process.

Documentation

The corporate documentation was studied in the period of researcher's internship in “Local Organizational Structure UEFA EURO 2020” and “Local Organizing Committee FIFA World Cup 2018”. In several studied documents applicable to the research were included following corporate files:

· "Structure and role of LOS UEFA EURO 2020 in an organization and running matches on UEFA EURO 2020" (25.04.2019);

· “Report of proceedings at a meeting of LOS UEFA EURO 2020 and LLS “Zenit Arena” (25.04.2019);

· “FIFA world cup debrief” (25.07.2018);

· “Operational plan of stadium “Saint-Petersburg” (2017);

· Federal Law ¹ 108 (2017)

The upper mentioned corporate documents were investigated in order to understand possible performance limitations and agreements in terms of which was working LOC FWC2018 and is working LOS UERO 2020. There were also analyzed documents of FIFA and UEFA in open sources. The data was retrieved from the UEFA and FIFA official website.

In a nutshell, basing on the upper mentioned methods, it is possible to conclude that the research has an exploratory purpose type.

These methods were the most appropriate for the research because in the progress of conducting in-depth interviews and documentation analyses, it was possible to determine criteria for VOC improvements. Basing on the methods of observation it was possible to evaluate whether actions used by other Venue Managers of other host stadiums are applicable for VOC of Saint Petersburg or not. For identifying, the best practices were used benchmarking analysis of process with functional partner type. Therefore, the research method of this paper is multi-method qualitative studies.

The thesis paper progress with its analysis were conducted under the next plan:

1. Documentation analysis regarding stadium's and FIFA regulations and requirements for understanding in which terms the stadium operational process was performing and what can be changed;

2. Observation analysis carried out in “Saint Petersburg” stadium's VOC on match days during the FIFA World Cup 2018. Development of factors influencing on the operational activity in VOC;

3. Series of expert in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with experts for identifying various methods and practices of operational processes problems' solving in terms of VOC's operational structure;

4. Benchmarking analysis conducted on the base of collected data and formulated recommendations about operational structure and parts, which could be improved;

5. Choose the best practices and experts suggestions applicable in “Saint Petersburg” VOC for UERO 2020.

All the collected data was structured in tables (Appendices 4, 5). A part of the criteria was identified after interview conduction regarding experts experiences discovering new topics, which have not been included in the questionnaire. As a result, with the help of these tables, it was possible to compare which methods of stadiums' VOC organization and interaction were the most efficient, useful and applicable for the “Saint Petersburg” stadium. The most gainful and appropriate practices were recommended and emphasized in the section “description of the results”. Also, on the base of interviews and observations in tables were summarized and selected solutions for mostly repeated incidents. The practices and recommendations, which were applicable for VOC were also discovered in details in section “description of the results”.

In the progress of the research during the period of internship in "Local Organization Structure UEFA EURO 2020" was identified as a need for basic recommendations for augmenting the competitiveness of LOS among other hosting nations. At the end of section “description of the results” were introduced suggestions made on the base of researcher observations, interviews and comparative analyses of all nations and stadiums taking part in EURO 2020. The comparative analyze was made additionally in order to introduce ideas that could increase the competitiveness of Saint Petersburg among other host cities. All host cities would be competing for gaining the name of “Best host city” what is given by the UEFA at the end of the championship. Thus, for the competitive analyze were used next three primary criteria:

· Stadium's capacity - the stadium in the match day is the most demanded place where all the fans are eager to get;

· Transport accessibility - is one of the main criteria, which helps to evaluate the quality of holding a match;

· Country's experience in organization FIFA or UEFA mega-events - if the hosting nation has already organized large international football FIFA & UEFA events, then it has required experience for holding in future EURO 2020.

The introduced variants for increasing competitiveness of Russia should be researched deeper and agreed with experts.

The research was done on the qualitative data analysis because it can take into account factors which varied among host stadiums in the period of FWC 2018 and consider them in recommendations development. For instance, all the VOCs were organized differently because their sizes differed. The area is an extremely significant factor for VOS's organizational structure because it would influence the number of acceptable equipment and stuff. All host stadiums except “Saint Petersburg” were built before Russia has got the chance to hold FWC 2018. Thus, VOCs were arranged additionally on the available and most efficient places on each stadium, but still, they were not planned from the very beginning of stadiums' construction. Another factor, which should be considered, is holding in the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup (CC) (Appendices 6). Only four cities were hosting this event before holding matches on FWC 2018. Organizing matches for CC 2017 was a sufficient experience, which was supposed by LOC stuff like test-event, which helped to be better prepared for FWC 2018 (Appendices 6). According to the Venue Managers of “Saint Petersburg”, “Luzhniki” and “Fisht” interviews, all the mistakes and incidents that had placed on CC 2017 caused changes in some operational processes.

Qualitative analyze can take into account the uniqueness of qualities and factors of each sport event. Nevertheless, the matches for UEFA EURO 2020 in Russia would be organized on the “legacy" of FWC 2018 these events have a various number of differences, which would influence on the VOC's organization.

The future research might include some statistical data gathered after FIFA FWC 2018 and UEFA EURO 2020 and analyse how personal decisions or practices influenced on some exponents. The quantitative method of further researches should take into account the qualitative data of this paper.

There can be defined next limitations for the paper. The work is developed exactly for the needs of LOS and for a specific stadium for coming EURO 2020. The research covers only personal experts' opinion and experience of Functional Managers working in VOC and Venue Managers of different host stadium, who were coordinating operational processes during the FIFA World Cup 2018. Differences in stadiums constructions, VOCs sizes, locations, various conditions and factors were considered in the recommendations development and benchmarking analyses. The chosen interviewers were unwilling to dive into details and share with schemes and documents as all that information was corporate. The focus group of this research are extraordinarily busy people reluctant to give any interviews. The observations were recorded only on the match days. The results descriptive part includes information exact related to the work of VOC. The time horizon for this research is cross-sectional because the study includes only the example of FIFA World Cup 2018.

4. Description of the results

Based on conducted nine in-depth semi-structured interviews were composed of two tables with benchmarking analyses. The in-depth semi-structured style of the interview has allowed deviating from the questions what has discovered new topics and notes valuable for recommendations development.

In the appendices 4, are gathered and structured answers of Stadium Managers, who were coordinating operational processes from VOC during the period of FWC 2018. Venue Coordinators were telling about their experience, methods of VOC organization, difficulties and decisions made by them. They have introduced their vision of a perfect place for VOC and its importance on the stadium. All managers have shared with their best practices of operational organization and emphasized some of their observations (Appendices 4, 6).

The appendices 5 reflects structured interviews with Managers of Functions who were presenting in VOC of “Saint Petersburg” stadium during the matches of FWC 2018. Interviewers were speaking about the organization of their function's work, issues, complementary resources and desired improvements for more comfortable work in VOC. Each of the managers has expressed the opinion about their function's location in VOC and its planning stage.

Method of observations (Appendices 3) gave to the researcher a complete understanding of the operational processes in VOC, its size, organizational structure and conditions. This method made the researcher take into account peculiarities of the VOC in “Saint Petersburg” on the stage of recommendations development. Differences in stadiums' constructions, VOCs' sizes, locations, various conditions and factors make some disclosed practices inapplicable for “Saint Petersburg”.

The research had to include one more comparative analysis of VOC seating charts of four hosting stadiums. However, comparison of these charts did not fulfil the anticipated results for the next three reasons.

Firstly, VOC constructions were not standardized. All the VOCs differed in size and could capture a different number of people. Spaces of some VOC did not give any possibility to add some extra people in the seating chart. Venue Managers of “Rostov Arena” and “Fisht” stadiums were following the regulations without any further changes in seating charts (Appendices 1). According to the seating chart of “Rostov Arena”, size of VOC's operational centre was 98 sq. meters. “Luzhniki” Manager was working only with Safety & Security Functions and CCTV operators in the operational centre, which size makes about 40 sq. meters out of 250 sq. meters of whole VOC (Appendices 6). Thus, the seating chart of VOCs in host stadiums should not be compared.

Secondly, stuff distribution in VOC is an individual decision of Stadium Coordinator. Venue Managers were composing the seating charts following their vision, habits and personal expectations. A seating scheme is compound in an appropriate way for the VOC's team comfort work. Thus, each scheme must be unique and composed by employees' specific characters.

Thirdly, lack of information about other stadiums seating chart. This intellectual capital is corporate what made some managers unwilling to share with this information. The analysis was impossible with the absence of these essential documents.

4.1 Recommendations for VOC

Venue Manager of “Luzhniki” stadium said (Appendices 6):

“People are presenting in venue operational centre work in extremely stressful conditions, thus, the place where they stay must be exceptionally comfortable.”

This list of recommendations is developed for VOC organizational structure improvement in order to make the working climate and conditions more convenient for employees. The recommendations explain what should be added into VOC of “Saint Petersburg” stadium or should be left as it is for UERO 2020. The list is divided into four sections concerning various directions of the VOC organizational structure.

Section 1: Working atmosphere organization in VOC.

· Scripts with CCTV operators. Usage of scripts defines the working regimes for CCTV operators and consequently for all the VOC stuff. The Deputy Venue Manager of “Saint Petersburg” stadium has told how he had organized the work with scripts (Appendices 6): “Concerning the work with video cameras I was using scripts and for each of them were already fixed a certain amount of cameras. It was working the next way: I was giving a command to CCTV operators, and they already knew which cameras they need to show on the video-wall". Each script took into account the most active territory at the stadium, which should be observed at the moment by Managers of Functions.

· Make training events attendance obligatory for all employees. Manager of VCC has been worried about the fact that some employees have not attended the extra training for the fact that they have already been there before. She stressed out that this had influenced on the operational processes and made people repeat those mistakes that were explained on pieces of training.

· The need of Deputy CCTV Manager. According to an interview with CCTV Coordinator, she needed a person that could replace her in non-match days. It is tough to beat working place every day without any days off. Thus, Deputy CCTV Manager would be a favourable position for a person willing to share a part of CCTV manager's duties.

· Turn working places of functional managers from the window to the video-wall. Basing on observations and CCTV Manager's opinion it is necessary to turn working tables from the window to the video-wall. Interest for the football game may distract employees' attention from the operations.

· Horizontal communication and well-adjusted trustful relationships in a team. This kind of work and communication organization have a positively impacted on the clearness and speed of information transmission.

Section 2: Resources required for comfortable work in VOC.

· Military stationary phone. Utilization of military phone would allow to keep information secret and have contact with head office in any kind of crisis situation.

· Podium for managers of functions. Manager of CCTV and FIFA Venue Manager have emphasized their worries about the fact that Functions' Managers and VC could not fully observe the video-wall. According to the seating chart (Appendices 2) between Functions' Managers and the video, wall placed seats of CCTV operators. It would be incorrect to exchange places of Functions' Managers and CCTV operators because video-wall is rather significant and nothing would be visible if to approach too close to it. Thus, construction of a small stage near windows would allow managers to see the video wall over the CCTV operators.

· Make the VOC overlay more signal-isolated. VCC Manager had some difficulties with signal interrupting the connection of all technical services of communication in halftime in the match days. She has explained this problem in a next way: “Sixty thousand people simultaneously triggered internet services what was blocking the signal of VOC technique”. Thus, the manager advised changing the overlay of VOC to ones that are more signal-isolated.

· Caterings during operations in match days. Having a meal in the canteen is almost impossible during the operational period on the match days; employees of VOC cannot leave their working places. According to observations, having a meal after the match is inconvenient as most parts of employees were tired and stressed, they leave the stadium as soon as it is possible. There were cases when matches were lasting until 11 P. M. and workers in VOC coordinate all the functions one or two hours after the match (Appendices 3). Thus, having caterings during matches would help workers to keep their mental and nerve system more stable.

· Screen with traffics. Online tracking of maps and traffics would allow seeing the full picture of the situation at the moment in the city, and be prepared for coming crowds of people. VC of “Rostov Arena” has emphasized the convenience of this practice.

· Other printers. According to the observations (Appendices 3), in the operational process, all the incidents from video cameras were printed and transmitted from hand in hands among manages in VOC. In the same way, we are working other hosting stadiums. "Fisht" Venue Coordinator said: “Each of our CCTV operators had a printer in order to transmit the incident to managers and keep doing his work”. Adding some more printers would accelerate information transmission in terms of VOC and would not disturb CCTV operators' attention for a long time.

· New laptops to VCC. According to the VCC manager (Appendices 6) there was a lack of laptops: “During the World Cup 2018 volunteers working in my team had a need in personal computers for each of them, so I had to bring two extra laptops from home”. Providence with laptops or computers for each volunteer would make their work more comfortable and productive.

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