Don't Forget Your Tickets
Don' Forget Your Tickets is a podcast devoted to the unsung heroes of the spectator sports and events industries, the Ticketing Managers. We explore who they are, their well-guarded industry secrets, and how they entered the field. Beyond that, we delve into a broader ticketing realm, inviting experts from various fields to share their insights and stories. Our primary aim is to add value and highlight deserving individuals.
(The podcast was originally named TicketingPodcast.com)
Don't Forget Your Tickets
First Female CEO: Ciara McCormack on Breaking Barriers in Irish Football
This episode of Don't Forget Your Tickets is a special one. It’s a deeply personal and honest conversation that explores both the triumphs and tribulations of a truly extraordinary career in football. We're joined by the first guest on our podcast to have excelled at the highest level both on and off the pitch, earning caps for Ireland as a player and then taking on a club co-owner and CEO role off the pitch.
Ciara McCormack, a former Republic of Ireland international, takes us on her unique journey from the pitch to the boardroom, where she became the first female CEO and co-owner of a men's and women's club in the League of Ireland, Treaty United FC. In her conversation with our co-host Clare Kenny she shares the raw, unfiltered story of what it’s like to transition from player to club leader, offering a rare look behind the curtain of professionalising a club.
Highlights from the conversation:
- Player to CEO: Ciara discusses the transferable skills from her top-flight playing career that prepared her for the challenges of club leadership.
- A New Frontier: Hear about her experience as a pioneering female CEO in a male-dominated environment and the progress being made for women in Irish football.
- The One Club Model: Ciara explains why she championed equal resources and respect for both the men’s and women’s teams, and the backlash she faced for it.
- Volunteers vs. Professionalism: For the first time on the show, we tackle the dilemma of managing dedicated volunteers while striving to implement professional standards for match day operations and club management.
- The Fan Backlash: Ciara speaks candidly about facing a fan protest, the mental toll of online abuse, and the importance of humanising leaders in sport.
Tune in for an inspiring and eye-opening account of resilience, leadership, and the passionate pursuit of building a football club from the ground up.
Don't Forget Your Tickets is powered by TicketCo and hosted by TicketCo’s CEO, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg. The podcast was originally named TicketingPodcast.com
What happens when a top-level player steps off the pitch and into the CEO's office? Welcome to this episode of Don't Forget Your Ticket. I'm Choleric Mobert, joined by co-host Claire Kennedy. Today, Claire chatting with Tiara McCormick, former Republic of Ireland, international and ex-CEO of 3D United FC about her lead from player to club leader and the challenges of professionalizing at clubs. Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome to another episode of Don't Forget Your Tickets, the podcast that shines a light on the people shaping the sports landscape in sports and quite often the non-sports landscape in sports. My name is Claire Kenny, and I'm a board member and chief commercial officer at Ticket Co., the sponsor and producer of this podcast. Now, with me in the studio today, and I'm super excited for this conversation, is Kira McCormick, a remarkable woman whose career to date has demonstrated enormous resilience, bravery, and talent. She's a pioneer, an entrepreneur, professional footballer, international no less with the Republic of Ireland women's team. She's played internationally in Norway, Denmark, Canada, the US, and Ireland. But her story goes far beyond the pitch. In a bold move, she became the co-owner and CEO of Treaty United Football Club in Limerick, a League of Ireland men's and women's club. So this was a position she held for the last two years and stepped away after an intense period earlier this year. So there's so much today we could talk about here. But let's focus on Treaty United. Let's start there because I'm excited to hear all about it and what's next for you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thanks for having me. I guess how the treaty situation happened was I always kind of had the aspiration of running a European soccer club, and Ireland was kind of a good fit, just because obviously I played for the national team. So I had a lot of contacts there. And I was looking at West Cork, which is an area that's a bit more remote. And when I got a hold of the league, they were telling me that they would basically professionalize the league and it would be easier to come in to sort of an already established setup. And so they said Treaty United, and it was a women's team initially that I was looking at. So they said Treaty United needed help on the women's side and was in like the same region. And so that kind of led me in through a connection with a former national teammate who was at Treaty. And then I ended up bringing over girls in early 2023. And I actually jumped in and played myself just because I just was bringing these girls over, just I was sponsoring them kind of as a kind of a give back, I guess, to my company in Canada. And then basically got to treaty, saw the club was kind of on its last legs, volunteer run, and everything was kind of professionalizing in Ireland. And basically asked the board if they'd be open to a takeover if I found investors. And then went back to Canada and hustled around for a few months and then came up with a group, um, Tread Corps Pacific Capital. And then yeah, we came in and took over Treaty October 2023 and became the first female CEO and co-owner in the League of Ireland of a men's and women's club. So that was a pretty exciting thing to, I guess, groundbreak on. And what was that like?
SPEAKER_02:Can you cast your mind back sitting there for the first day? I presume in your new office at the club, what was going through your head?
SPEAKER_00:Like Ted Lasso actually had just come out around that period of time. So I kind of just used a joke like my life felt like the Netflix series. And it just, yeah, like it was. It was crazy. And even my teammates that I had played with like had no idea where I disappeared to for a few months. And then I popped back at the end of the season as a CEO. Yeah. And I mean, kind of symbolic of where just I think, again, like I said, Irish football is kind of in this sort of progression from amateur to professionalization. Like there wasn't an office. So it was like, you know, we were myself and the COO at the time. It was just kind of the two of us bouncing around coffee shops. And yeah, so it was crazy. It was really exciting. It was, yeah, like kind of a constant, like pinch me type of situation where it had been something that I kind of had this wild dream for like a really long time. And like, you know, maybe a part of me thought I could pull it off, but like to actually have pulled it off, it was pretty exciting.
SPEAKER_02:It's amazing. And what skills do you think? Obviously, as a player, you've played at the the top of the women's game. You were one of the first players also play in the Champions League when you were in North America. So, what transferable skills as a player do you think you took into the boardroom, as it were?
SPEAKER_00:I think I've always gone first with a lot of things and kind of had these like wild, crazy ideas. And, you know, whether I was like 17 and wanted to play soccer in the US at university on scholarship when that wasn't really a done thing, or going over to Europe and was kind of one of the first players to go over to Europe. Like, yeah, I think just from that perspective, I think you build kind of like muscles of, I don't know if it's craziness or like belief or whatever that like wild things are possible. So I'd say my soccer career probably gave me a little bit of that. I think also, you know, when I was, I guess, 21, 22, I moved to Denmark. I didn't know anybody, I didn't speak the language. You know, that was a really difficult situation, you know, initially. So I think I'd been in a lot of like hard, uncomfortable situations where like I felt maybe a bit over my head in terms of like the knowledge or experience or mentors or whatever that I didn't have coming into situations and kind of figuring it out. So I think from that perspective, I'd say that I probably drew on that a lot in terms of just the fact that I had done kind of things that people hadn't done before and again didn't know what I was doing necessarily, and but again, had sort of like conquered things eventually and so kind of had that belief in myself and probably just a little bit of like calmness in the crazy that I'd be able to figure it out and succeed ultimately. I think just that belief as a player that a long history of playing maybe gave me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Let's talk about Irish football a little bit. Now, obviously, we're both women in football, I'm sure, used to very often being the only woman in the room in whatever environment that is. But do you see that changing in Irish football? Obviously, you've been this amazing pioneer as the first female co-founder, but have you seen even that short time over two years a transition? What's your impression of the growing equality and position of women in Irish football?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I think the government is doing a good job in the sense that it's getting mandated politically, that there has to be, I think it's like 40% representation or maybe even 50%, but like a very, very high percentage. It's mandated by government if organizations want funding, that that has to be like a part of things. So I think that that's the positive, unfortunately, in a way, because I think people sort of tend to just grab the sort of the, you know, of if you're a guy, just not necessarily anyone doing anything that's like malicious or anything, but just kind of the familiar. So I think that's kind of maybe broken that up a bit in Ireland in the sense that there, like there's a look around to being like, you know, who's the female that we can bring in to make up these quotas and stuff. And again, I think that's a big positive in the sense that it increases the diversity of experience in the room in the decision making, which I think is always a huge positive. And so yeah, like I know for me, I was probably the youngest female in the room, but I know like the other women that I was on the different boards and stuff with. Like what I really loved about the Irish, the at least the football and culture was there was a lot of camaraderie and a lot of knowledge sharing and a lot of openness and supportiveness. And so yeah, like I became really close with the other women just because again, you know, like it's a common sort of experience that we're all having that's different to other people. And I think that that just naturally has you gravitate towards people. So, and to be honest, I have to say that like in terms of with the football federation and everything in Ireland, those circles, I always felt very respected and equal and you know, appreciated. And I was always very, very impressed by that as well because in football circles I've been around the world, and that's not always a given if you're a woman.
SPEAKER_02:That's great to hear, you know, and you see that progress. I've certainly seen that progress over the last 30 years. Not as fast as it should be moving, but it's definitely going in the right direction. So let's talk about women's football on the pitch for a moment. Obviously, a treaty, both men's and women's teams, and the League of Ireland women's premier division obviously doesn't have the commercial investment that the men's team has. But how do you see that changing? Where do you see the future of that league and women's football? And what do you think are the biggest challenges facing it today?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I think it was one area that I felt like I offered something probably different in terms of just my perspective, because a lot of the narratives, you know, I grew up in Canada and the US in a time when the amount of times that, you know, we weren't marketed properly, and then you're sort of told, oh, people aren't interested, but you're like, I don't have a degree in marketing, but I have common sense. And I know that if, you know, if you shine up a red bag and you and make it something everyone's vying for versus like tossing it in the corner in like a dark dumpster, the reaction to the product's gonna be different. And I always personally believed that if it was treated with that sort of respect and belief that it was something that would be accepted and gravitated towards. And obviously we've seen that unfold in Canada and the US in the last, you know, five years exponentially. Like, and so in Canada, like this past year, the new women's pro league happened. And we had four girls that played for Treaty last year that, you know, were making the minimum salary, 50,000 a year, playing in front of four or 5,000 people. And so that was kind of a narrative when I would be in rooms and people would say, Oh, you know, people just aren't interested in women's football, or oh, the level's not good enough. And I could say, Well, guys, I hate to break it to you, but four girls that played for us last season, you know, and we were the bottom three teams are making 50,000 a year. And so I think from that perspective, you know, I think people were kind of like, oh, really? I would never have imagined that. So I think that was something just maybe from sort of a narrative perspective that I felt like we've seen it happen. It's not like a hypothesis anymore, it's a proven fact. So I think to be able to share that, and I think one thing we did at Treaty, and I took a lot of heat for it, but I stand by it was that we treated the women's team with equal respect to the men's team, equal resources in terms of physios and field time and all that type of stuff. And unfortunately, like in 2025, that should not be like a revolutionary concept, but it was very much like what in God's name is going on over at Treaty. And then the narrative that would come out would be like, oh, I don't care about the men's team, all the money's going into the women's team. And when in reality, the women's team had been completely neglected, like completely neglected for like five years and just decimated like the talent all had gone other places. So there was money that was needed to sort of build it back up. But just that narrative for us where it was like, you know, the women's not lower than the men's team, and you know, we believe in it the same and stuff. And I got a couple of nice messages when I left from people saying that the fact that we did that at Treaty made their clubs kind of sit up and take notice, and they felt like had sort of improved things for their team. So yeah, it's an area I'm still super passionate about in terms of wanting to maybe potentially sort of like help push that along, just because, like I said, I sort of have a really specialized insider knowledge of all of it now and also have this outside knowledge too that I think I could potentially bring in and help push the women's game forward. Because unfortunately it still is the sort of forgotten stepchild. But the reality is that the focus at this point, because the rewards on the men's side with you know, sponsors and with fans and all that stuff like come from the men's team winning. It was interesting being, you know, really passionate about the women's game, but then running a budget for a men's and women's club, and just you can just sort of see how if the macro is not set up properly, how those micro decisions within clubs get made that do always end up sort of leaving the women's team behind.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And that's an amazing legacy. I hope other clubs follow that. There's a couple of clubs, obviously, across Europe, one in the UK loose, that has done the same thing and obviously made a name for themselves. But in my mind, it's the only way to go to make it a true equal playing field. So looking back, also, I mean, obviously, that's a fantastic legacy. But how did you also, I mean, obviously, your time as a player, a coach on the field, in terms of managing people within the club, and obviously at Treaty United, there's a lot of volunteers as well. What strategies or philosophies do you employ in terms of really managing people and the teams off the pitch to get the best out of them?
SPEAKER_00:You know, just there was a lot of really learning on the fly in a lot of different areas, in a way that was like extremely interesting and a lot of growth in terms of just learning. And I think the thing that was difficult, like when you're coming into an environment, you're trying to professionalize it. And obviously, volunteers are obviously such a crucial lifeblood to clubs and especially underfunded clubs. And I think, you know, again, like there, there's some unbelievable people that do an incredible job. But I'm almost of the opinion that it's almost like if we really want to professionalize things, we need to pay people. And for the people that are doing a fantastic job, like they deserve to be paid. And then there's other people again that maybe aren't at the level. And it becomes difficult where if people aren't doing a job to a certain standard or you want to raise a standard, it was a really interesting kind of learning model in terms of trying to figure out like how do you implement change and raise the level and professionalize things. But then you also have an ecosystem that already exists, you know, with a group of people that obviously are giving a lot of their time and all that. So I think for me, like I think, you know, if I was to move forward again, I think people deserve to get paid if they're doing a good job. And I think when people are getting paid, you can hold people to standards. And if you want to raise the level of anything, you have to be able to raise the standards. And you know what I mean? It's kind of a self-fulfilling process.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. No, I totally get that. So when it comes to fans, obviously, we are a ticketing podcast and always really interested in learning more in terms of delivering the best fan journey. Obviously, you've played in different countries, but obviously in terms of actually managing a club on the business side, what did you notice as a difference, if any, about how fans engage with football in Ireland compared to other countries you've worked in?
SPEAKER_00:Well, as someone that had a fan protest against me, it might be a little bit of um an interesting perspective that I had. I think to be dead honest with you, and I talk to our men's head coach about it all the time. Like the thing that I could just never get used to, and I don't think I'll ever be able to get used to it, is just how, for whatever reason, sports is a platform that people can just act utterly abusive. We would always say it, you know, like, you know, the head coach would never walk into a bar and get poured a bad drink and start yelling at the bartender what an effing bad job of a poor that they did on the beer and blah, blah, blah. Or a teacher would never tell a kid, like, you're an effing moron, you didn't get two plus two, right? But for whatever reason, like in football, it's just a space that people, like the worst selves are allowed to come out. And I think a lot of times for me, I felt like there was a disconnect, whether it was a referee or me as a CEO or the men's head coach, like there was this real disconnect that like there's actually like a real person that's like behind the nasty stuff that you're writing online or like you're screaming at the stadium or that you're, you know, making a sign about or or whatever. I just think to be honest, it's a really bad message for young people to see that, like, you know, and I think that was something like we got a lot of slack because during the season the head coaches asked for the comments on social media to just be shut off because it just got like horrendous in terms of like the things people were saying. And, you know, and again, the coach's points were that it was like affecting the players' mental health. And like, even, you know, we had some really talented young players and even them getting all the hype and everything on social media. So that was something again, you know, but it the center of it was the abuse, you know. And I don't know, like at that point, it was kind of just this out of control fireball. And when the coaches had sort of asked for that, I was fine with giving that.
SPEAKER_02:How did you deal with that personally? That mental toll.
SPEAKER_00:It was horrendous. And I tend to sort of like make a joke out of things when like something traumatic is happening. Like, my tendency is just to try to like laugh and step back and be like, this is just so outrageously crazy. Where, you know, literally I didn't go to the match that they protested and there was a big sign and they were yelling like F Kira McCormack and chanting it. And and again, like it's there's just very few people in the world that could understand what that experience is like, you know? And so it did feel very isolating and it was definitely not a nice part of things. But then actually, you know, what was a positive in it was I ended up getting a hold of the guy that sort of like led the protests against me and just said, can we sit down and like have a chat? Cause this is kind of getting out of control. And, you know, we sat down for four hours and like hammered it out, and you know, and even I was able to say to his face, like, because he was saying some really nasty, like in my mind, even like out of bounds things, like, you know, where it's like if you're in a street fight, like there's still rules that you like, you don't hit so dirty, and he was hitting so dirty. And and you know, and I I got to look him in the eye and say, like, that was actually really hurtful. And he looked me back and said, I didn't think about it like that, and I'm really sorry. And, you know, but I think the thing is, is it's like in the end, you know, the the fans, like our ultras group or whatever, we got a couple of buses, we had our most successful season ever on the men's side, and everybody's happy at the end of the season. But like I still went through that horrendous situation at the beginning of the year, and you know, you can't really take that stuff back. But like I said, the wider ecosystem that it's just accepted, or even when I try to sort of raise it with sort of more leadership people like within the league or whatever, and it's kind of just like that's just the way it is, and I don't buy that as a response. And I just will never accept that like that should be a space that people can be treated like that. Cause like I can say personally, like it's horrendous to be on that side of it.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's awful. And that's certainly one area of the game we love that does need to be addressed. But I think you're right, I've also found that sometimes when you engage face to face, uh, people have to come from behind their computers or their phone or out of the group on the terraces, uh, as it were, then you can actually find a more reasonable uh way to move. But yeah, it's something which no one should have to encounter. So what's next then? Given everything you've achieved to date and this wonderful experience that you've acquired, what's next? What's that burning ambition that Kira McCormick wants to achieve next?
SPEAKER_00:To be honest, like I only finished up, I think, like a week ago. So I've spoken to a couple of Other clubs in the league and have some other ideas of just different kind of consulting things that maybe like groups and stuff that have reached out that potentially could be things that I do. I think for me right now, like I'm kind of feel like I've been in like a Ferrari going 300 miles an hour the last two years. So I think like I'm just still decompressing from the whole experience. And I think whatever I do next, like this has been an incredible experience and I've learned so much. And I want to serve, you know, the highest good that I can with like the knowledge that I have and the passion that I have for like the game and the game in Ireland. And like I definitely think I want to stay connected, whatever I do next, like with the game in Ireland, just because I've found a real passion there. And I think there's a real big opportunity still there in terms of where it's at and its evolution. So yeah, but in terms of like a concrete plan of what comes next, yeah, I think it's just something I'm gonna just catch my breath over Christmas and continue to process the last couple of years. And like I said, just whatever I do next, like I just again, the the best part about the last two years was being able to do something that I felt super, super passionate about. So I think for me, like that's where I know my like good energy and my good contribution comes from. So I think it's just a matter of figuring out what that looks like and you know, just people that I just work really well and feel inspired by. And I think, yeah, I feel optimistic. I don't know what it is, but I have a good feeling about it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think you deserve a break for a short while. But yeah, I think the world of football needs you back at some point. So as we sort of draw to the end of this conversation, I could speak to you all day. I've got so many other questions. So maybe we should do a part two. But the commercial directors, you know, people working in clubs, club managers, staff listening to this who might be facing similar challenges. Do you have any advice that you could give to them, those people that are in your shoes, as it were?
SPEAKER_00:I think people that are in leadership positions, like I think making sure that you have ample support. I'm the kind of person, like I like to pick up the shovel and be in the ditch, and I'm not better than anybody else. Or, you know, I like to think that that's kind of the style of leadership that I have is that to be humble. But I think you have to surround yourself with really good, competent people. And, you know, and I know that that's really hard in terms of again, the landscape, especially in Irish football, that is underfunded. But I think it's really important to be strategic in terms of finding like support in certain areas. Like I think administratively was one area that I think if I could go back, that just was such a drain of my time and energy and all that kind of stuff. So I think, I think, yeah, just making sure that you've got ample support and really being strategic. It's like waking up every day to a Mount Everest of everything going on. So I think just being really strategic, again, like I said, with positions that people are put in and then also where is your time gonna give the biggest bang for the buck kind of thing. So I think those are things that definitely like I would take away from the experience of again, like I said, being in a situation that I think most people, at least in Ireland, are in, where there's a lack of fun. So I think it's really important to be strategic. And I think at the end of the day, too, like I've reached out to kind of mentors throughout this process. And I had a CEO of a big Silicon Valley firm that I just a friend of a friend, and he said to me, and he he had no soccer knowledge whatsoever, but I kind of explained the landscape to him. And he just said to me, you know, what it sounds like is there's a football side and a business side. And he goes, if you have to focus on one, the business side is what like you need to put the resources into because there's no football side if there's not a business side. And I thought that was such great advice in terms of, like I said, when you're faced with like a Mount Everest every day from a focus perspective in a leadership position, I think it's really easy to get sucked in, especially if you have a soccer background into the soccer side of things. But you know, the business piece of it is the most important. And I think it's also from a resource perspective for clubs, again, when they're trying to figure out where to put limited resources, I do think that commercial side is so important and probably not given enough resources to.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I agree. Well, as a commercial practitioner, I would obviously agree. But no, that totally makes sense. Kira, thank you so much for such an honest and open conversation today. And then something I was going to mention because you talked about that support sort of not being there, and I think that's something that obviously women in football, there's been huge progress in the last sort of 20, 30 years. But there's a women in football event in Northern Ireland in January. Oh, so maybe we can meet there and carry on this conversation. Okay. If our listeners want to follow you moving forward and find out where you go next, what's the best way for them to do that?
SPEAKER_00:Um, that was a one positive was that fan protest got me up right off of social media. So I've disappeared off of Twitter and I am firmly now in LinkedIn, which is seems to be the most calm waters of the social media world. So LinkedIn, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I agree. So thank you so much once again. And definitely we should uh bring you back onto Don't Forget Your Tickets. So you've been listening to Don't Forget Your Tickets. Today's guest was Kira McCormack, former CEO and co-owner of Treaty United Football Club. We hope this conversation gave you a real look at the grit required to run a football club and really what it takes. And we wish you all the very best in your next adventures.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks, Kirby.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, Kira.
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