Theo Judges the Premier League Enterprise Challenge Finals 2018

Theo once again supported the Premier League Enterprise Challenge, by judging the Finals at EY in London on 23rd April 2018. Fellow judges included Peta Bistany (Executive Office Director, Premier League), Graeme Le Saux (Former Premier League and England Defender) and new judge, Alex Scott (Arsenal Women’s Captain). The aim of the overall competition, also in partnership with Sport Relief, is to provide Premier League and English Football League Clubs, schools and young people with the unique opportunity to compete against each other to pitch solutions to a specific football business challenge.

The participating Club finalists this year were from: Wigan Athletic FC Watford FC Middlesbrough FC Brighton & Hove Albion FC Everton FC Swansea City AFC

The event was hosted by CBBC and Guinness World Record TV presenter, Ben Squires.

Theo shared some words of wisdom to rally the troops ahead of their Dragons’ Den style pitches to him, and his fellow judges, in a pre-match talk!

Alongside their presentations to the judges, the finalists are also given an on the spot supplementary task to complete showing how they would gain support for their main idea with key stakeholders. The teams were judged on their adaptability, evidence of collaboration and their drive, which there was no shortage of on the day!

Due to the incredibly high standard this year, the judges couldn’t decide between two of the schools so for the first time ever there were double winners!

Congratulations to Lathom High School for Wigan Athletic FC and Broadgreen International School for Everton FC, who both did a fantastic pitch and wowed the Judges with their original ideas.

Lathom High School decided on an idea to help visually impaired spectators by providing headphones with full match commentary and tablets, so they can re-watch anything they may have missed on the field.

Broadgreen International School opted to look at how they could tackle the underrepresentation of BME and mixed faith fans attending matches. They planned to target key areas of Liverpool where 52% of the population are BME, recruit an Inclusion Ambassador and develop an educational training programme.

Commenting on the day Theo Paphitis said:

“The standard this year was exceptionally high and for the first time in 10 years we have a double winner! It has always been close but this year we had two very different but brilliant ideas that none of the judges would compromise on. Congratulations to both winners and to all the finalists who put a lot of hard work in and delivered some great pitches!.”

Congratulations to all involved and for all the hard work that went into the event and preparation!