How to Lead a Premier League Football Club: Paul Barber OBE on Leadership, Governance, and Growing the Women's Game

This week's guest is Paul Barber OBE, Chief Executive and Deputy Chairman of Brighton & Hove Albion and non-executive director at Women in Football.

Paul has spent over 30 years in the game, working across the FA, EFL, Premier League clubs, and MLS with Vancouver Whitecaps. In this conversation, he opens up about what it actually takes to lead a modern football club – from managing pressure and making hundreds of decisions a month, to building culture across two sites and being visible to every member of staff.

This is a grounded, honest masterclass on leadership, governance, allyship, and long-term thinking in football.

1. Why football clubs are small businesses with huge impact
   Behind the Premier League spotlight, most clubs run with relatively small off-field teams, working seven days a week across stadium and training ground.
2. How corporate skills transfer to elite sport
   Paul's years at Barclays gave him rigorous training in planning, budgeting, management, and people development.

3. Composure, pressure and the 'acting skills' of a Football CEO
   Results swing, league tables change, pressure intensifies. Paul explains how he's learned to stay calm externally even when he feels exactly like the fans internally — and why consistency, perspective, and responsibility to his staff shape how he shows up on matchday and in crisis.

4. Building Europe's first purpose-built women's stadium
   Paul unpacks Brighton's bold plan to invest £75–80 million in a purpose-built stadium for their women's team — designed through a female performance lens and a different audience profile. He explains why this is both the right thing for athletes and a long-term business play, and how it can set a standard for other clubs.

5. Humour as a strategic leadership tool (with Jeff Mostyn)
   Through stories of former AFC Bournemouth chairman Jeff Mostyn — including hiding under a boardroom table and cutting tension in Premier League meetings — Paul shows how humour can defuse conflict, build relationships, and keep people going through intense periods like COVID.

6. Paul shares three practical tips for building a career in football
   Paul closes with three simple, powerful principles for anyone who wants to work in football and much more!

Link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-barber-obe-164552a/

From Street Football to the Saudi Pro League: Lina Boussaha on Identity, Ubuntu, and What It Really Takes To be a Professional Footballer

This week's guest is professional footballer Lina Boussaha, currently playing for Al Ittihad in the Saudi Women's Professional League and representing the Algerian national team.

Lina opens up about a journey that began on the streets, playing alongside boys, and led to competing at the highest level of the women's game. She reflects on how those early years — unstructured, joyful, relentless — quietly built the technical ability, mental toughness, and identity that define her today.

This is a conversation about resilience, faith, curiosity, and what it really means to grow as both an athlete and a person. Lina's story is grounded, honest, and full of lessons that go well beyond football.

What You'll Discover

1. Why street football builds world-class players Playing for hours without a clock, without a coach, and without consequence gave Lina something structured training rarely can — close control, creativity, and an instinct for the game that became second nature.

2. How resilience is built before you know you're training Doing it "again and again and again" wasn't a regime. It was just football. But that repetition laid the mental foundations Lina would rely on at every level of her career.

3. Ubuntu and the Al Ittihad way I am because we are. How the spirit of Ubuntu and Al Ittihad's culture of unity shape Lina's understanding of teamwork and leadership — and why no player ever succeeds alone.

4. Keeping joy alive under pressure The shift from carefree street football to the demands of elite competition is real. Lina talks honestly about how to hold onto the love of the game when the stakes get higher.

5. Principles you can take into your own career From embracing discomfort to using your everyday environment as a training ground — practical, transferable lessons for anyone building a career in sport.

Connect with Lina:

Instagram: instagram.com/lina.boussaha

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Image Credit: @ittihadladiesclub

The Mind Behind the Game: Lili Iskandar's Journey to Professional Football

This week's podcast special guest is Lili Iskandar, professional football player, who plays as a forward for French club En Avant Guingamp and the Lebanon National Team.

1. What it takes to be a female professional football player

2.Why research matters in the development of women's football

3.Lili shares how getting out of her comfort zone was key to her football development

4. Lili explains the difference between being an amateur and professional football playe

5. You will learn Lili's passion for psychology and her latest football psychology research project

6. Lili shares the power of dreaming big with positive habits and much more