Risk Assessment For England National Football Team In 2018 Football World Cup

Background

This project is based upon the assessment of risk of the 2018 Football World Cup for the National Football Team. The data has been collected regarding the type of risk which may encounter during the game which will held in Russia from 14^th June to 15^th August 2018. This sporting event raises the question for the safety and security of the players (Hubicki, 2014). The risk assessment in the present report has been done for the team of England which is going to Russia for the football game. As per the collected data, various positive as well as negative risks events have been identified and will be analysed in the report to for the risk management plan so that preparation on risk management can begin in advance (Hanstad, 2012).

The aim of the project is to analyse the risk for preparing risk management plan to mitigate it in advance. Furthermore, deliverables of the project is to prepare the accurate risk assessment plan from the player’s perspective so that the coach of the team could prepare their team in advance against the risks (Poolsappasit, Dewri and Ray, 2012). Further, the success criteria of the project are to mitigate or reduce the impact of all types of sporting risks that can impact the players and their performance in the Football World Cup 2018.

Analysis generally means the detailed examination of the laments or structure. Similarly, risk analysis is the process of defining as well assessing the dangers to wither individual or to the organization which can be posed by potential events that can be either natural or human-caused. In a similar manner, in the present report, risk assessment for the sporting event has been done where risk related to sports have been identified and it has been analysed to mitigate it in advance. However, there are both type of risk involved that is positive events as well as negative events and these can have different impact on the players and their performance (James, Kelly and Beckman, 2014).

For analysing the risk for risk management plan, various kind of analysis has been done and those have been described as follows:

The current project is about the preparation of a risk management plan for the sport players of England which is going to participate in the World Football Cup 2018 in Russia. This project aims to identify the potential issues prior to their occurrence in order to plan the risk-handling activities (Pritchard and PMP, 2014). These activities can also be invoked as and when needed across the project life. It also aims to mitigate the adverse impact which can be caused while achieving the objectives that is to give the best performance during the match and exceeds the expectations of the country and the coach.

On the other hand, success criteria are generally the standards through which the project is judged at the end. In this, it is decided that whether the project is successful and met the expectations of the stakeholders or not (Loosemore and et al., 2012). For the present project that is based upon the risk management of sporting activity for Football World Cup 2018. The success criteria for the present project are as follows:

Analysis

Table 1: Success Criteria

Success Criterion	Grade Criterion
Yes	No
Scope	Scope of the risk management project is identified in a given time, given cost and within the duration of the activities.	Scope of the risk management project is not recognized within given time and cost and also in a specific duration of the activities.
Budget	Risk management is done in a given budget.	Risk management exceeded the budget provided by the project manager.
Schedule	The schedule of the risk management is prepared in advance.	The schedule for the risk assessment is not prepared.
Resources	The required resources such physical, human and technical are already in place while developing the risk management plan.	The resources required for accomplishing the task is not in place.
Process Adherence	The risk manager is adhering to the process of risk management.	Manager is not adhering towards the process.

Risk appetite is basically the amount of risk which an organization or a team is willing to take for meeting their strategies objectives. It is already known that risk is present in every event and one has to take the risk to achieve success. However, it depends upon the individual that how much risk he can take to win the game (Hartmann and Juepner, 2014). For the present case, the maximum average risk appetite of each player is 60% and if the risk will be put more than that then it may impact the performance of the players. Therefore, risk manager has to apply suitable measure in order to mitigate it and to reduce it till 60% of its impact. For instance, the risk appetite during violent crime in Russia is 40% and if it happens more than that then it will impact the player’s performance.

Furthermore, the risk tolerance is regarded as the degree of variability of the returns that an investor is willing to withstand. Risk tolerance is an important component while playing the game. For instance, the risk of wider public unrest into Russia is going on when the President Putin stated that a re-election is done in March 2018 presidential polls (Hull, 2012). For this risk, tolerance of player is medium if there is a breakdown in the Russian public during the game.

It is said that risks involve anything unplanned and unforeseen events which can put a negative impact on the project and its quality. It is the duty of a project manager to manage the risk effectively and get the project on track. For managing the risk in an appropriate manner, proper tools must be applied and one of the important tools to manage the risk is the Risk Breakdown Structure (Leoni and et al., 2015). RBS is basically a hieratical representation of risks that starts from higher levels and goes down to last level risks. It is similar to the work breakdown structure for project management.  The RBS for the identified sport event risk is as follows:

Figure 1: Risk Breakdown Structure

Effective risk management needs analysis of inherently uncertain events as well as circumstances which addresses two dimensions that how likely the uncertainty is about to occur and what effect would be if it would happen. The likeliness of the risk is termed as probability of the risk (Fuller, Junge and Dvorak, 2012). For the present case, where sporting risk management for the Football World Cup 2018 for the England team has been done and the risk manager has identified 5 major risks for the sports event, the probability of these risks has been done. This will help the risk manager know that which risk contains the high probability of occurrence and which one contains low probability. The probability index has been prepared as follows:

Table 2: Risk Probabilities

S.No.	Type of Risk	Probability of occurrence	Description
1.	Risk of wider public unrest into Russia	Medium	The President of Russia announced for the re-election and for that, candidates opposed the president’s decision. Therefore, Russian opposition is fragmented and it is a major threat to power structure. The probability of the occurrence of this risk during the game is moderate.
2.	Risk of violent crime	Medium	Rivalries among opposing party are continued to create the risk of violence. As there are clashed going on among England and Russian supporters and it can result into material damages and risk of exposure to violence. Thus, the likeliness of the occurrence of this risk is estimated as medium.
3.	Threat of terrorism	High	The risk of terrorism is high in Russia because Russians are facing continuous threats from terrorists worldwide. Further, the Islamic state called the attacks because of the strategic involvement into the Syrian conflicts. In mid-2017, terrorist group has issued various calls for doing the attacks during the Football World Cup 2018. However, it is a higher profile sporting event; therefore, the probability of occurrence of this risk is estimated to be very high.
4.	Threat against the players	Medium	Threat of terrorism can be against the players because there is a risk of terror at the global sporting event. Various calls have come to attack throughout the tournament and many calls show the threat against players. Therefore, the likeliness of occurring this risk is amounted to be medium.
5.	Islamist insurgency into North Caucasus	Low	The Sunni Muslim extremist groups that are based in North Caucasus are tied with the local criminal networks. However, it has been found out that security forces of Russia has been prioritised the anti-terrorism operations that is bid to weaken the insurgent networks and limit the capacity to plot attacks. Therefore, the probability of occurrence of this risk is low.

Risk impact is regarded as the second dimension which defines that what impact it will put to the event if the risk occurs actually. Therefore, the risk impact comes after identifying the probability of the risk (Glendon, Clarke and McKenna, 2016). In other words, it is a process of assessing the probabilities as well as consequences of risk procedures if they are realized. The result of the risk impact is then used for prioritising risks for establishing a most-to-least-critical significance ranking. For the present case, risk impact has been defined based upon the probability of the risk and the impact of these risks has been defined as follows:

Aim and success criteria for Project

Table 3: Risk Impacts

Type of Risk	Impact	Description
Risk of public unrest in Russia	Minor	The probability of this risk is moderate and if it would occur then also it will not have heavy impact upon the players. Thus, it has minor impact (Collins and Collins, 2013).
Risk of violence	Moderate	The probability of the occurrence of this risk is likely and if it will happen then it may have moderate impact on the game and the performance of the players.
Threat of terrorist attack	Major	This risk is likely to occur and terrorists group in many of their calls has mentioned about the attack on players as well. Therefore, the impact of this risk is major on the players.
Threat  of terrorism to players	Moderate	As it is described earlier that terrorist has gave various calls to attack at the Football World Cup 2018 and there are moderate chances that players can also be attacked (Allen, 2012). Thus, the impact of this even upon the players is moderate because they will be provided high-end security by Russian security. However, still the impact is regarded as moderate.
Islamic insurgency in North Caucasus	Minor	The Sunni extremist groups are tied with the local criminal networks and the probability of this risk is low because of the prioritised security has promised to weaken the insurgent networks. Therefore, its impact is also low upon the players of England team.

Risk severity matrix is that matrix which is used while doing the risk assessment for defining the level of risk by identifying its probability and impact (Edwards and Bowen, 2013). This is regarded as the easy mechanism for increasing visibility of risks and assisting management decision making. The risk level in the present risk assessment has been defined using a risk matrix and that is as follows:

Table 4: Risk Severity Matrix

	Threat against the players			Threat of terrosism
			Risk of violent crime
		Islamic Insurgency into North Caucasus	Risk of wider public unrest into Russia

In general terms, the planning of risk response involves the determination of ways through with threats of the event can be reduced or eliminated (McLennan and Handmer, 2012). Further, it is the duty of risk manager to eliminate the threat of risk prior their occurrence. Similarly, the manager is also responsible for decreasing the probability as well as impact of risks and he should enhance the probability and impact of opportunities for the stakeholders (Makdissi, Davis and McCrory, 2014). Likewise, for this project, risk manager must do the risk responses planning in order to identify the ways for mitigating the occurrence and impact of the risks on the player of England team for Football World Cup 2018.

There are four aspects for threats and those are avoid, mitigate, accept and transfer. These four dimensions have been described below:

Figure 2: Risk Response

(Source: Risk Response Types, 2018)

Avoid: In this, the risk of Muslim insurgency must be avoided because it will not have likely impact on the players. By changing the strategy, risk manager can avid this risk.

Mitigate: The risk of terrorist attack which has major impact on the game and players must be mitigated using risk probability index (Mair and Burke, 2013).

Accept: The risk of public unrest at Russia and violent crime must be accepted where contingency plan can be made for the risk to occur.

Transfer: Threat against players risk must be transferred to the security team as well as insurance company because the likelihood of that risk can impact the lives of the player (Cameron and Owens, 2014). Therefore, security team will secure the team members and insurance will recover the amount if any injury is caused to them.

Risk register is used as a risk management tool for fulfilling regulatory compliance which acts as a repository for all risks that are identified and involves additional information regarding each risk such as nature of the risk, reference, owner, and mitigation measures (Zillmer, 2016). For the present case, risk manager has maintained the risk register so that information regarding each risk can be mentioned in that. The risk register for sporting event of Football World Cup 2018 for England team is as follows:

Table 5: Risk Register

Type of Risk	Reason	Impact	Mitigation
Wider public unrest in Russia	The President of Russia announced the re-election in March 2018 and this made the opposition party furious leading to the wider unrest in the country.	Moderate	By managing the good relations with the opposition party by Russia so that during violence, Russia should not get impacted.
Risk of violent crime	There are clashed among Russia and England supporters and that can result into material damages as well as risk of exposure to violence. The possibility of clashes by the hooligan gangs during the Football match.	Moderate	By trusting the security arrangements by National team and also trusting the security concepts build by Russian authorities, the risk can be mitigated.
Terrorism threat	Terrorist groups have called the attacks in Russia due to strategic involvement during Syrian conflicts by the Russia.	High	Terrorism risk management program must be adopted by Russia. This plan consists of emergency plan, disaster recovery plan as well as reduction of financial risks (Coker, 2014).
Threat to the players	The calls of terrorism involve the attack on players as well during the Football World Cup 2018. The country is worried regarding the attacks throughout the sporting event	Moderate	The country brings the security services of various nations together in order to enhance the safety to the players. Further, players should build a faith in the security management of Russia.
Islamic insurgency into North Caucasus	The Sunni extremist groups are joined with the local criminal network along with regional and international organizations who are doing the attacks against administrative of Russia from last two decades.	Low	There must be a contribution towards the development of grounded understanding of Islamic state to process an analysis of finances and management of group predecessor that is “Islamic State of Iraq”.

There are 3 primary recommendations that have been made to risk manager for carrying out the risk management plan in an effective manner. These recommendations are as follows:

• Enhancement of risk intelligence: Risk intelligence is the way risk manager perceives the risk management and conduct itself with regards to risk (Collins and et al., 2014). The risk transparency must be promoted at all levels. For that aspect, manager should clearly communicate the responsibilities to all players and must hold the responsible parties in an accountable manner. Secondly, the manager must develop a process for all the players to communicate regarding emerging risks throughout the event (Hanstad, 2012). Lastly, players must be encouraged to overcome the challenge which can help in the mitigation of risks.
• Determination of Risk Appetite of each player: The risk appetite of each player must be determined in advance both in qualitative terms and quantitative terms (Moyle, Kennelly and Lamont, 2014). This will help the manager in the mitigation of risk for all types of players.
• Alignment of risk management with the strategy: Firstly, the risk manager must develop the strategies for overcoming the risk before and during the Football game. After that, these strategies must be aligned with the risk management so that strategies could be applied at a proper place for the purpose of elimination of risk (Preuss, 2014).

While working on the risk management plan, risk manager encountered with various challenges that created limitation or shortcomings for the analysis that has been carried out. The information used for the risk management is not sufficient and due to this appropriate risk appetite of player was not created (Leoni and et al., 2015). For example, player’s emotional quotient is needed for identifying the risk appetite. On the other hand, less than a month is left for the Football match and this time is not sufficient to prepare strategies and apply it to the event for reducing the impact of the risks.

Risk Appetite and Tolerance

Furthermore, there are many unseen risk which could not be identified during the data collection and those risks could have an adverse effect on the players and their performance. Thus, the strategies for those risks cannot be made for reducing or mitigating the impact (Hubicki, 2014). Further, the constraint of budget also hindered in the preparation of appropriate risk management plan.

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