The jungle farm La Castellana does not seem to be 20 minutes from Punta del Este: its geography is more similar to the Amazon than to
the most exclusive area of the Río de la Plata
.
We open the gate and there is the protagonist of this note, in pristine white, with her matching month-old baby girl.
She invites us into the spacious, cool house, and she leads us to a table with croissants, cheeses, ham,
scones,
puddings, coffee and squeezed juice.
Nothing to envy of a Brazilian breakfast.
"You eat calmly, I'm going to change."
After 15 minutes Victoire - that's how it's spelled - reappears, but asks to be called Vicky.
She was born in Boston, grew up and
trained in Argentina between the ages of 10 and 18 (she is 31)
, but ended up in Athens, Paris, Miami and San Francisco (Silicon Valley) and for a year she has been residing in London, married to Philippe, her top ten husband in world poker and with Charlotte, her baby girl.
"I am Argentinian and I say that wherever I am in the world
," says this woman of the world who says that she came to La Castellana to rest for a few weeks before returning to the cold of London.
Daughter of Alexis Cogevina, a Greek diplomat, and Shalimar Reynal
,
a pioneer of the genre in the representation of soccer players with SR All Stars, her company in Miami, Vicky Cogevina Reynal began her meteoric career there in 2013.
Today she is known as
the strong lady of women's football.
Her knowledge of the industry, technology and market that surrounds football, in addition to her love for Racing, surprises this football chronicler who is left off-side in the face of such knowledge.
In SR All Stars, together with her mother Vicky, she demonstrated virtuosity and skill as an
agent and representative of soccer players
, until in 2018 she slammed the door and became independent "a little intoxicated with that job, the darkest in soccer."
She wanted and needed to spread her wings, she had been dreaming up an idea that would surprise the football technology community:
Gloria, the application "to democratize football" that was all the rage
and that soon sold.
"OneFootball, the market leader, bought it for me so as not to overshadow it."
At times overwhelming in the talk with
Clarín
, with data and knowledge, Vicky predicts that
"in ten years women's soccer will not only have established itself as a billion-dollar business
, but it will have been one of the largest movements that fought for equality of gender, one of my workhorses. I am sure that women in football will be able to participate on an equal footing with the world's biggest brands."
How?
"The equation is simple... Note that it has always been said that half of the world watches football, the male half. According to statistics, some 3.5 billion people (of the 8 billion on the planet) watch and consume football .
What a coincidence that it is almost half!
What would happen if, suddenly, the other half of the world, the female half, started watching and consuming football?
There is the great vision and mission of my new venture, Mercury 13."
What is it about?
"Mercury 13 is a holding company that
will invest 100 million dollars in the purchase of thirteen women's soccer teams
in order to take these clubs and their players where they deserve. We have planned a sustainable business model that is more beneficial than men's teams who, due to their astronomical salaries and million-dollar transfers, end up at a loss or, with luck, pardoning the profits," he tells
Clarín.
Mother and daughter, pioneers.
Shalimar Reynal (60) and Vicky Cogevina (31) were the first women to dedicate themselves to representing soccer players.
In the photo, with little Charlotte.
Photo: Ramiro Souto
Cogevina feels she is the voice of women in football, she represents them.
"I think that my mission in life is for
women's football to be a vehicle to disseminate gender equality.
Seeing women beginning to star in something that men practiced all their lives, and that they appropriated, seems to me the most beautiful image." strong to show that the world is changing and that women are there to fight in this sport.
Reflective and loquacious, she states that "women's soccer invites us to
rethink the business model to try to have other benefits
. This venture will begin in Europe, where the business is, not in the United States or Latin America. Argentina? It is on another level ", light years away from what is happening in Europe, although it is advancing little by little and with a team that is trying to grow. It happens that the Argentine clubs and their partners are not interested for now in investing in women who play soccer
.
"
Paying attention to whether her baby is eating, Vicky tries not to lose focus.
"Through investors that I was able to get with Mercury 13,
we are about to buy our first three women's teams
that belong to Spain, Italy and England, and play in the first division. I still cannot say which ones they are because we have an exclusivity contract. Yes, I can say that one of these clubs has 37 women's teams of all levels and
its first team will participate in the Champions League."
"Women's football is a Trojan horse, the biggest business of the next 20 years," he says.
He was asked what the objective is with those clubs that will be acquired by Mecury 13. "Give them autonomy, provide them with financing to develop brands and experiences that
speak to female football consumers
. These brands will begin to naturally address women, not only from football, but from other identifications such as the values of the club, the activities they carry out and even the characteristics of the cities to which they belong."
Convinced and convincing, she shares that "from the company, we as partners with the club, will inform how to
reach these potential women-fans: the executive, the teacher, the university student, the young girl and the housewife
, through a process of different commercial strategies so that the big women's brands (beauty products, fashion, pharmaceuticals, fertility clinics) focus on clubs as a fruitful business.
Future FIFA lady?
Do women consume football in the same way as men?
"No, not at all. Women are not interested in knowing the names of the players, nor are they interested in seeing the summary of all the goals of the different matches, which marks male behavior. Nowadays, women bet on movement of gender equality and supports and
identifies with female players who do what men have been practicing for a century"
.
"This wave that will be unstoppable is being seen by the industry and by the brands that do not want to miss it. It is true that it still needs to be a product of excellence, but the audience there is, only in England, is impressive and it also comes out "Much cheaper.
Watching a women's football match at Wembley costs a fifth as much as a men's match,
as well as being much safer."
"I knew that if I could get a meeting with Alexis (Ohanian), I would sell him my product. It took a lot, but I finally got there."
Photo: Ramiro Souto
Without moving a gesture on her face, she slips almost naturally that "
sooner or later I am going to be the president of FIFA
. I am still young, but I see it and I see myself in that role for which I am preparing. I What I notice is that neither FIFA nor its president Gianni Infantino see the women's soccer business that is coming, because
they have been involved in the billion-dollar men's soccer business for a hundred years.
Do you know how many people saw the World Cup played in Australia and New Zealand? -challenging question- Two billion (with twelve zeros). But FIFA does not see the elephant in front of its eyes."
They bring Charlie (Charlotte), he showers her with kisses and she seems like a homely mom, not this tank who, due to personality and ability, seems unattainable.
She claims to be "a normal girl who knows what she wants," but to achieve this infrastructure she assures that she had to sweat it out.
"
I studied design, I was immersed in the world of fashion and living in New York, nothing to do with all this,
but I accepted my mother's proposal and went to Miami in 2013."
He began to work and demonstrate his virtues, first, in the player representation business
.
"Being an agent made me passionate about football but I must admit that it was not easy at all.
I did it for five years and I ended up hating that role, because it is the darkest side of football,
there is always the suspicion that you will be left with a return, of "that you fill the player's head for your own interest. The representative does not think about the footballer in a comprehensive way, but rather looks for the commission he can earn in the short term."
Representatives of footballers.
Shalimar and Victoire when they were partners.
Here with the Uruguayan Nicolás Lodeiro.
He comments that he always thought that "the representative must think of the player as a footballer and as a former footballer, with what is coming, and I think the latter is what my mother and I were able to express from All Stars.
We knew the player, the woman, to the children, we knew which school the children went to"
, lists this businesswoman who came to represent more than 50 Latin American players, among whom were Nicolás Lodeiro, Tito Villalba and Yamil Asad, to name a few well-known ones.
Five years of intense activity passed, until in 2018 he told his mother that he would become independent, that he would travel to the west coast of the United States, more precisely to Silicon Valley (San Francisco), to try to develop his ideas, something that Shalimar , his mother, disliked him.
"
I didn't believe in myself, or in my personal entrepreneurship.
We had a difficult moment in the mother-daughter bond."
Sweat and tears
Vicky explains that she left Miami "to get investors for my technological idea, which was an application so that
amateur soccer from around the world would have the opportunity to show themselves , to get to know each other. That's why I chose Silicon Valley, the
tech
cradle
. I arrived with a lot of naivety to a world of voracious start-ups
and the first times were not easy at all: my mother was angry for having given up on All Stars and, out of spite, she cut off my groceries.
"I had to sell all my clothes to survive."
"An unconditional love," Vicky Cogevina defines her relationship with the ball and soccer.
Photo: Ramiro Souto
Despite the setbacks, she was always convinced that it was time to walk along the ledge.
"I was 25 years old, single and without children, and I knew what I wanted but I couldn't do it due to lack of a sponsor.
I understood that I had to take risks, my future was at stake. I began to get advice on how to open an application, how "present it and how to get financing. Through a contact, the Armenian Razmig Hovaghimian - who today manages Leo Messi's investments - I got meetings and interviews."
They were 18 months of uncertainty and suffering.
"I had ideas, contacts, good looks, an office to work in, but I didn't earn a penny, so I began to get rid of everything to transform it into money: clothes, purses, bracelets and even the computer. With that money I paid my pensions. ", of which I was moving because I always found something cheaper.
I remember crying a lot because I lived without electricity for six weeks: they cut it off for lack of payment
."
Vicky's family eased up on the "penance" and asked her to return to Miami.
"Is it worth lying in an unlit boarding house in San Francisco when you could be in a lounge chair on the beaches of Florida?"
,
was Shalimar's thought.
At the end of 2019, casually,
he had his 148th meeting. "I had had 147 failures in a year and a half, I had them all written down
, but this one couldn't fail. I ended up meeting with one of the most important investors in the world. world: Alexis Ohanian, the founder of the social network Reddit and husband of tennis player Serena Williams.
"There is nothing more powerful than a female consumer," says Vicky Cogevina Reynar, a fanatic Racing fan.
A couple of months before the long-awaited meeting, Ohanian had posted on his then Twitter:
"How can it be that people sleep and don't invest in this sport, where there is a giant business?"
.
Vicky contextualizes the tweet.
"Ohanian was in France, where the 2019 Women's Soccer World Cup was being held at that time. When I read that tweet from Alex, whom I followed on social media, I thought: 'This is the right person, the one who is going to understand me.' 'That's how I began
the operational interview with Alex Ohanian, a truly impossible mission.'
Once he was able to persuade the "Boss's" entourage to have the pivotal meeting,
"I knew I was going to convince him to invest in my project
. The meeting was at his offices in San Francisco and I had a week to prepare. When I met him the It was really a big shock, not only because he is almost two meters tall, but because his personality is intimidating. As soon as I entered his office, I asked to go to the bathroom,
I washed my face, looked at myself in the mirror and said to myself
'Don't lose the opportunity of your life that you fought for for a year and a half
while starving yourself'
.
Until the secretary told me I could come in and as soon as I crossed the threshold, my life began to change."
The meeting lasted an hour, showed him what Gloria, this online soccer community, would be about, and it was so positive that "
a week after our meeting he made me an offer to buy my app,
which he valued at 3 million dollars." But I counter-offered him that my company was worth 5 million, and he ended up accepting. I was alone, I signed the contract, and a few hours later I had
a first payment of 600 thousand dollars in my bank account
to start this dream called Gloria."
So much effort to reach Gloria brought its profits, but also little life for the brand new application.
"
As the market was competing with the German Onefootball, which was the leader, its owners decided to buy the device from me and cancel it
, to maintain their hegemony. I cannot say the amount of the sale due to a contractual issue, I can say that "The acquisition of OneFootball meant that I grew up ten years at a time."
One question remains and Vicky is asked: where does the name Mercury 13 come from?
"I put it
in tribute to a group of thirteen astronauts
who in the '60s were funded to become the first women to reach the Moon. For ten years they trained in the same way as men, but
NASA "He immediately rejected them because of their gender
. 'Women are not fit to go to the Moon,' was the excuse. I wonder what would have happened if those women had arrived in 1969 and not Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin."
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