AIL ARENA, BRAND STRATEGY AND CLUB DEVELOPMENT: THE THEMES OF THE START OF YEAR CONFERENCE
The FC Lugano's press conference at the beginning of the year, that took place in the morning of Tuesday the 13th of January 2026 at the LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura, symbolically marks a moment of passage for the Club: between mid-season balances and a more and more concrete look towards the future, the year 2026 promises to be a year destined to leave its mark. Vice-President and CEO Martin Blaser was the one who outlined the guidelines, in a speech that touched on all of the club's strategic areas, from the sporting to the organisational level, passing through the club's new identity and the AIL Arena project.
'The motto for 2026 is AIL Arena,' Blaser emphasised at the opening, highlighting how the new stadium represents not only an infrastructure, but a change destined to influence the entire organisation. A transformation that involves people, processes and vision, and that will take place in a year defined by the CEO himself as 'special', straddling the current sports season and the beginning of a new era.
On the sporting level, Blaser reiterated the objectives set at the beginning of the season: for the men's first team, access to the Championship Group; for the women's first team, a placement in the upper zones of the National League B; for the U21 team, confirmation of the category. These topics were then discussed in depth during the round table with Chief Sports Officer Sebastian Pelzer andmen's First Team coach Mattia Croci-Torti, confirming the centrality of the sports area in the Club's overall project.
Alongside the pitch, however, the corporate structure is also growing. The Vice-President and CEO illustrated the evolution of the staff, which now counts about 180 collaborators, a number destined to further increase with the integration of the activities linked to Team Ticino. An expansion that makes the themes of people, corporate culture and social responsibility increasingly central. In this context, the projects on Child Protection, Code of Ethics and Inclusion fit in, with the introduction - for the first time - of Italian Sign Language interpreting during the press conference, a concrete sign of attention to accessibility.
Ample space was also dedicated to financial analysis. Blaser presented the economic data from the beginning of the season, highlighting a constant growth compared to the previous years, while reiterating the complexity of a phase that is already looking ahead to the 2 March 2026 deadline for the licence application to the Swiss Football League for the 2026/27 season. The arrival of the AIL Arena, with new revenue opportunities but also with greater responsibilities in terms of costs and management, requires prudent and transparent planning, in line with the approach adopted by the Club in recent years.
One of the central moments of the conference was the presentation of the new Brand Strategy of FC Lugano, entrusted to the Chief Marketing Officer Andrea Ruberti. A strategy that doesn't mark a break with the past, but consolidates its principles, putting the Club's identity, values and positioning on paper. The guiding concept, enclosed in the claim "The city is our stadium", tells about an FC Lugano more and more integrated in the urban life, able to be a social and cultural reference point as well as a sporting one. Values such as truth, clarity and performance remain the heart of the Brand DNA, declined in a vision that aims at making FC Lugano a model in the Swiss football panorama, on and off the field.
To complete the picture, Mirko Campana, Head of Business Development, illustrated the business development and three key projects conceived to strengthen the link with the territory: 'First day of school', 'Nati bianconeri' and 'Partner Club'. Different initiatives, but united by the will to bring new generations, families and Ticino football clubs closer to the HCL world, building a solid and lasting base in view of the entrance in the new AIL Arena.
And it is precisely looking at the stadium that the most awaited news arrives. At the end of the conference, Martin Blaser announced that next week all the information concerning the 2026/27 public ticketing of the new AIL Arena will be unveiled, with an appointment dedicated to the illustration of the sectors, the prices and the sale modalities. An announcement that confirms that the AIL Arena is no longer only a project, but an ever closer reality, destined to mark the next chapter of the FC Lugano's history.
SEE THE PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR BELOW: