There is potential for Borussia Dortmund to develop further in E-Football: BVB Asia Pacific MD Suresh Letchmanan

Borussia Dortmund is one of the more traditional clubs in the German Bundesliga, with strong values and extremely efficient core functions. However, that does not stop the club from exploring further avenues of expansion.

Borussia Dortmund's managing director of the Asia Pacific region, Suresh Letchmanan, joined Taruka Srivastav on an exclusive Facebook live interview and spoke about the club's way of functioning in the future among various other things.

Letchmanan was asked about what revenue streams Borussia Dortmund was exploring in light of the COVID-19 pandemic which has changed the football landscape from an economic point of view. He mentioned E-Football as one of the areas where the club was interested in expansion, remaining cautiously optimistic.

"E-Football, as you call it, is the new way. I think everybody is involved in the gaming world. That’s an angle where we could develop further," Letchmanan said.

"I think we’ve looked into E-Football just this year, it’s a work in progress and we have an on-going relationship with Electronic Arts. Everyone is familiar with the FIFA games, so we are engaging a lot with games and with influencers as well," continued Letchmanan.

"During the pandemic, we did an event where a fan got a chance to play against one of our players or one of our legends in a FIFA match. These are some of the things we are working on alongside EA. We are doing a couple of things in Korea as well. It's a work in progress and we’ve already got an E-Football team, which is organizing all of these activities," explained Letchmanan.

It is now common for some of the biggest clubs to cherrypick the best FIFA players in the world to represent them at official E-Football championships. For example, 'Tekkz' represented Liverpool in the last edition of the E-Premier League.

However, Letchmanan said that competing in the format is something that Borussia Dortmund is still some way out from. While he did not rule out anything for the future, the suggestion was that it is a gradual process.

"Whether we’ll compete on a high level is yet to be seen. Like I said, we’ve just started this year and it will take some time before we reach a competitive level," Letchmanan said.

Borussia Dortmund has a strategic two-year partnership in place with ISL side Hyderabad FC and is planning future tours and activities with the legends team among other things.