Damian Pedrosa: “The real owner of football is the people”

From working alongside his father in a small family business in Córdoba to helping transform Talleres and producing some of South America’s biggest sporting events, Damian Pedrosa has built his career by embracing challenges and thinking beyond the obvious. 

Now, as one of the driving forces behind ZTE in Hungary, Pedrosa is taking on perhaps his most ambitious project yet: building a sustainable club capable of developing talent, challenging for European places and giving its supporters something to dream about. 

In an exclusive conversation with Daniel Sobis for beIN SPORTS USA, Pedrosa reflects on his journey, his Argentine roots, the philosophy behind ZTE and why he believes the club can compete with Hungary’s biggest teams without losing its identity.

Daniel Sobis: First of all, thank you for accepting our interview. I’d like to start at the beginning. Before entering professional football, you worked in your family business. How did that experience shape you into the executive and, eventually, the owner of a European football group you are today?

Damian Pedrosa: It was a long and beautiful journey, and honestly, I can’t complain about any part of the process.

We had a family business that my grandfather had started and my father was running. It was a small company with around 15 employees. We replaced car windows, and I started going there with my father when I was very young — around 13 or 14. At that age, it was more of a fun experience for a kid who wanted to earn some money to buy a pair of football boots.

When I turned 18, I started working there formally.

We had shifts, we rotated responsibilities, and I learned a tremendous amount. Looking back, I think it was one of the jobs that taught me the most because we operated in a very particular industry. We were essentially a mechanical workshop, but we also worked with some of the biggest insurance companies.

That meant I had to learn how to deal with every possible type of person — from someone whose small car window had broken and who needed to pay for the repair in installments, to the manager of a major insurance company.

At a very young age, I also had to understand that I could be supervising someone who was 50 years old. I learned a lot from that experience, and I was fortunate that many of the older employees helped me tremendously. I really enjoyed that stage of my life.

Daniel Sobis: Do you think your life would have been different without that experience? Did learning how to work from such a young age change your mentality?

Damian Pedrosa: One hundred percent.

I was fortunate to grow up in a middle-class, perhaps upper-middle-class family, but certainly not a wealthy one. When you are young and you have to step outside the circle you grew up in, it teaches you a lot because you begin to understand what life is really like.

I often talk about this with my friends and family: the earlier you can step outside your own social circle, the better. Life is eventually going to expose you to all kinds of people — good, bad, wealthy, poor, different backgrounds, different personalities — and learning how to relate to everyone helped me enormously.

Daniel Sobis: You were born and raised in Córdoba. What does Córdoba mean to you, and how much of that identity do you still carry with you today, living in Hungary?

Damian Pedrosa: That’s a beautiful question because it’s something I talk about with fans back home all the time.

Córdoba, Argentina and my family have had an enormous influence on the way I live my life. They taught me about altruism, social commitment and, above all, the importance of understanding the circumstances of other people.

Argentinians, and especially people from Córdoba, are very close-knit and supportive. That marked me deeply.

Throughout my life, I’ve always felt that a step wasn’t complete unless I could bring that spirit of solidarity and companionship into it — helping whoever I can help, bringing people into the project who can contribute and making sure that everyone has a place.

That background has been particularly important now that we are working in Hungarian football.

For a long time, I felt football in Hungary was an environment reserved largely for the very wealthy and powerful. The fan and the supporter weren’t always at the center of the conversation in the way I believe they should be.

I always say that the real owner of football is the people — the person who enjoys the game, who takes his daughter to the stadium, who lives for his club.

That perspective made me ask myself: Why are you here?

The answer is because I want to build a business, because I love football, but also because I want to leave a legacy in the community.

I don’t mean something enormous. It could simply mean seeing a father enjoy his club because it is stable and he no longer has to worry about relegation. It could mean supporting a university or contributing to the community.

Nothing in life really makes sense if you do it only for yourself and for an entirely selfish purpose. Córdoba and Argentina taught me that.

From Talleres to building Ten+

Daniel Sobis: Let’s talk about ZTE in a moment, but I’d like to go back to your first step in football, at Talleres. You arrived at a very difficult time for the club, and eventually experienced growth, a transformation of the squad and qualification for the Copa Libertadores. What did you learn from those years that you still apply today?

Damian Pedrosa: A lot. A lot.

I’m extremely grateful for that process and for people such as Andrés Fassi, who trusted us because we were very young. I say us because we were a group of around 10 or 12 very young people.

I learned a tremendous amount because we were fortunate — or perhaps unfortunate at the time — to experience some very difficult periods.

Today I laugh when I think about how we started. I remember there were six of us working in one office, sharing a single round table and one printer. Everyone brought their own computer.

People would ask me, “What do you do at the club?”

My answer was basically: everything — purchasing, sales, security, whatever was needed.

And we learned an enormous amount.

We enjoyed that transition as the club grew into the great institution it is today. In the beginning, it was very hands-on. We had to find resources and solve problems through creativity because the club wasn’t wealthy.

That experience taught me how a startup can transform into a model organization.

Today, Talleres has grown enormously. The scale is completely different from when we started, and that transformation taught me a lot about building organizations.

Daniel Sobis: You also worked with Andrés Jornet, who is now your partner at ZTE. What is it about your relationship that allowed you to work together again after so many years?

Damian Pedrosa: First of all, it’s a great friendship.

We became very close during our time at Talleres. Going through so many challenges together creates a bond. We were a group of 10 or 12 people who, at times, felt like it was us against the world. That brings people together.

Eventually, we became very good friends.

We also have an interesting characteristic: we are extremely different. We are almost complete opposites in many ways.

But within those differences, we found a complement.

People always say that opposites complement each other, but actually living that dynamic every day is much more complicated. One person thinks one way, the other thinks completely differently, and you have to find a way to work together.

Fortunately, we do that very well.

I think that’s one of Andrés’ greatest qualities. He’s a top professional, but what I value most is the way our differences in personality and approach — not in our fundamental values — allow us to complement each other.

Of course, we argue. We pull each other’s hair out every couple of months!

But the fact that we can work so effectively despite being so different is something I really admire.

Building Ten+

Daniel Sobis: After almost six years at Talleres, you decided to create a company called Ten+ Productions. You went on to work on Copa Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana, the ATP and many other major events. What made you take that step?

Damian Pedrosa: It was really the result of a lot of hard work.

I’m convinced that working with football clubs in Argentina happens in cycles. There is a very strong political component to club football, and after around five years, I felt that my cycle at Talleres had been completed.

At that time, I was working as the club’s operations and security manager, and part of my responsibilities involved producing the club’s home and away matches.

I really enjoyed that side of the business. I saw significant opportunities there.

I was also fortunate. You always have to give some credit to luck.

When I left Talleres after the first Copa Libertadores campaign, I started my own company. I remember starting with very little. It was a tiny office — actually, it wasn’t even really an office at first.

I was basically Damian with a backpack, going to bars and having meetings wherever I could.

The office actually closed just two days before the pandemic began.

But I was lucky because shortly after leaving Talleres, Córdoba was selected to host a major match between the league champion and the cup champion.

I had built a good relationship with the people managing the provincial stadium. They told me, “Damian, this event is coming. The people from Buenos Aires who own the event are coming next week. If you want to join the meeting, you’re more than welcome.”

I went to that meeting with all the enthusiasm in the world.

Two or three months after leaving Talleres, we were already producing that major event at the Kempes Stadium.

Then Pablo “Cholo” Iñiguez, whom I had met through Talleres and who had represented the national team, chose us to produce one of his events.

That was really the beginning: people trusted us, helped us and gave us opportunities.

Then came the biggest turning point.

During the pandemic, CONMEBOL needed to find a venue for the Copa Sudamericana final and chose Córdoba. We entered the project as a relatively minor supplier, but as the pandemic reached its most difficult point, we ended up taking responsibility for practically 100 percent of the event.

We worked incredibly hard to make it happen.

CONMEBOL began to trust us. They liked the way we worked, and that opened the door to many more opportunities.

That led to several beautiful years of growth. We were able to work on Copa Libertadores finals at the Maracanã, including Boca Juniors vs. Fluminense, and three finals in one week at the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo.

And then came the icing on the cake: producing the Copa América in the United States in 2024.

Daniel Sobis: It must have been an incredible experience, especially working at such a high level and learning from organizations at the top of the sport.

Damian Pedrosa: Absolutely.

CONMEBOL worked extremely well with us. In fact, UEFA representatives visited us on several occasions to observe some of our working procedures.

They helped us establish very high professional standards. They taught us a lot, challenged us and pushed us, and as a result, we grew enormously.

There were moments when we felt as though we were taking Córdoba with us.

We were producing major events with local people and local talent, and suddenly we were producing a Copa América or working at the Maracanã.

We would look around and think: How crazy is it that a company from Córdoba is producing an event and leaving its mark on a stadium like the Maracanã?

It was a beautiful process.

Why Hungary?

Daniel Sobis: After that journey, what brought you to Europe, and specifically to Hungary?

Damian Pedrosa: Madness!

Honestly, it was madness.

Football gives you something that very few other industries can give you, and that is the adrenaline of competition. I missed it — the pressure of having to perform every seven days, the dynamics of working with a team.

I missed that enormously.

I had always dreamed of managing a football club or owning one.

But I never dreamed of being the president of Real Madrid or anything like that. My dream was always something much smaller and more personal.

During a very informal dinner with Andrés, I said to him, “We have to revisit this. I think you are one of the best in the world at what you do. We have to find a way to make the dream we both have a reality.”

He told me about someone he had met in Hungary.

It had happened almost by accident. Owning a club wasn’t part of his plans. He had simply met this person through Talleres, and the meeting had stayed in his memory.

I went to Madrid and had conversations with several clubs. We spoke with clubs in Portugal, Italy and Spain, but those meetings weren’t particularly productive.

Then I contacted this person in Hungary.

He immediately said, “Yes, let’s meet.”

We met in Madrid and had a four-hour meeting that was extremely productive.

I came back and told Andrés, “I really like this project. The numbers look good, the prospects look good. Take a look at the sporting side. What do you think about the league and the opportunities?”

That’s where our complementary personalities came into play again.

I’m the type of person who jumps into the water first and checks afterward whether there’s actually water there.

Andrés is much more cautious.

After about a month, he came back to me and said, “Dami, I think this is good.”

And once Andrés said that, I thought, Okay, maybe it really is good.

From there, everything accelerated. We started the due diligence process, created the companies, made an offer, and eventually reached an agreement.

The negotiations were complicated and difficult, but six months later, we were living in Hungary.

Discovering Hungarian football

Daniel Sobis: You’ve said that you were impressed by the infrastructure in Hungary. What surprised you most — both positively and negatively?

Damian Pedrosa: The biggest positive surprise was the openness.

Two people who had absolutely no connection to the Hungarian football establishment were allowed to enter, develop and work without major problems.

That surprised me enormously.

I’m not sure it would be that easy in every country for two young foreigners from a completely different football environment to enter the system.

The infrastructure also genuinely surprised me in a very positive way.

I invite everyone to look at the infrastructure in Hungary because it is top-level. I’m sure that some clubs and leagues in Italy or Spain would be surprised by the quality of the facilities here.

The negative surprise was the gap between that infrastructure and other areas of the football ecosystem.

Hungarian football hasn’t developed its professionalism, player development and transfer market at the same pace as its infrastructure.

There is still work to do in terms of developing players for sale, creating a more profitable and efficient market, producing young players and developing a financial structure that responds more effectively to market realities.

That surprised Andrés and me a lot, and it still does.

In some ways, we suffer because of it. In other ways, it represents a huge opportunity.

Competing with bigger clubs

Daniel Sobis: You have a very clear focus on young players and finding talent, but obviously with financial limitations. Why do you believe this model can compete with clubs that have much greater resources?

Damian Pedrosa: Because we work extremely hard.

We put in a lot of hours and a lot of time.

Coming from a South American culture forces you to be more creative because the reality is that resources in South America are much more limited than in Europe.

If we have €10, we have to make those €10 work twice as hard as a European club might be accustomed to making its money work.

That creativity, professionalism and passion — although passion is subjective — are how we compensate for the much larger structures of other clubs.

Last season, we entered with what was, at that time, the lowest budget in the league.

But we found a group of players and professionals who genuinely believed in the project. They felt that the project belonged to them.

That kind of motivation can compensate for financial differences.

You have a nutritionist who is willing to work incredibly long hours because he wants his players to perform better.

You have a player who arrives and says, “This opportunity could change my life.”

There are stories I can mention because they are already public. Players such as Maxwell Alegría and Diego Borges used to take four buses to training. They would wake up at five in the morning to arrive at training at eight.

When a player with that kind of background gets an opportunity and believes it can change his life, that creates an incredible level of motivation.

That compensates.

We also have a coaching staff that works extremely hard.

I believe that passion and opportunity allow us to compete. But it also comes down to professionalism — treating every department with the resources we have, while operating as if we were an elite club.

Building a talent factory

Daniel Sobis: It’s interesting because you’re not focusing only on established players. You’re also working with the academy, from children as young as seven or eight all the way to the first team. If, five or ten years from now, the club is recognized as a talent factory, would that mean you are on the right track?

Damian Pedrosa: Absolutely.

The key is to continue working the way we are working today and not move away from our philosophy.

That’s something I emphasize every day at the club.

Of course, the club is going to grow, and it already has grown significantly. We are no longer the lowest-budget club in the league. We should be somewhere around the middle.

But we can never lose our philosophy or our hunger.

Here’s a simple example.

We stayed at the same hotel for preseason last year, and we will continue staying at that same hotel for the next ten years because it has everything we need.

It doesn’t lack anything, but it doesn’t have anything unnecessary either.

That’s our philosophy: passion, austerity and creativity.

If we continue with that vision and ambition, I believe we can become a reference point in the region for developing and selling players.

There are already examples of clubs that have achieved this. Midtjylland has done it. Independiente del Valle has done it.

We’re not reinventing the wheel.

We are simply trying to replicate good practices that other clubs have already proven can work.

The most difficult part is staying true to the philosophy.

If we don’t move away from it, I believe we will be fine.

Can ZTE challenge for the title?

Daniel Sobis: Since we’re talking about developing players and talent, do you believe ZTE can compete for something bigger — perhaps the Hungarian championship or success in Europe? Could that happen in three, four or five years?

Damian Pedrosa: Without a doubt. I genuinely believe it.

There are already examples of clubs and projects where this has happened.

I’m convinced that in two or three years, we can be a club competing for European places every season.

I have absolutely no doubt about that.

I don’t believe the two objectives are contradictory. That’s actually one of the biggest internal discussions we have.

Being an austere, sustainable club and being competitive are not mutually exclusive.

I genuinely believe that within two or three years we can be a stable club competing for the top three positions every season.

I really believe that.

The Hungarian talent pool

Daniel Sobis: You have brought in many players from Latin America, particularly Argentina. If you find talent through scouting, do you believe there is enough talent in Hungary itself to develop players who can eventually reach the biggest clubs? Or do you need to continue bringing in players from abroad?

Damian Pedrosa: From the scouting side, that is very much Andrés’ area.

But I won’t avoid the question.

We’re actually going to publish an article about this topic — the Hungarian market and whether it is possible to replicate what we currently do with foreign players using Hungarian players.

It’s complicated.

Hungary is having a difficult time producing enough players, and the government, with good intentions, introduced measures encouraging clubs to use Hungarian players.

That created significant inflation in salaries and in the market for Hungarian agents.

Today, I understand that some people may see this as contradictory, and I respect that, but I don’t necessarily agree.

In my opinion, what Hungarian football needs today is an injection of foreign players into the league in order to break the status quo and the comfort zone that has developed.

For a long time, a Hungarian player could feel that he had a guaranteed place and a very good salary.

In some cases, that meant there was less incentive to leave Hungary and seek opportunities elsewhere.

It’s a strange situation — and, frankly, quite alarming.

But I don’t want to blame the players. I think the issue is more about the system.

We need to create international competition within Hungarian football.

Then, three, four or five years from now, we can begin to see the benefits for Hungarian players who know they have to compete for their position against another Hungarian player or against someone from Moldova, Argentina, Croatia or Poland.

Today, however, it is difficult.

It’s genuinely difficult to find enough high-quality talent in Hungary at a price that fits our model.

It’s a very complicated task.

There are many clubs competing for a relatively small number of players.

What is the next dream?

Daniel Sobis: You’ve helped rebuild Talleres, worked on some of the biggest sporting events in the Americas, and now you’re the owner of a club in Hungary. What is the next big dream for Damian Pedrosa?

Damian Pedrosa: Honestly, it may sound like a political answer, but I hope people believe me when I say it: my dream is to make ZTE better.

This was my dream.

And today, I’m living that dream.

I don’t have ambitions to own more clubs or to move on to a bigger club.

Right now, my dream is for the people of Zalaegerszeg to celebrate a championship.

I want them to be able to say proudly, “I’m from ZTE.”

I want someone to go to Budapest and say, “I’m from ZTE.”

And I want clubs from Budapest to come to Zalaegerszeg and say, “Damn, we have to go and play in Zalaegerszeg.”

That’s the big dream.

Honestly.

Daniel Sobis: And I imagine you would be extremely proud if one of your players eventually made it to Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea or Manchester United.

Damian Pedrosa: Of course. I hope so.

We’re not far away.

We’re going to make it happen.

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