Bohemian FC is delighted to confirm the appointment of Daniel Lambert to a new position of Chief Commercial Officer.
Lambert takes on the new role having served the club as Chief Operating Officer for the past five and a half years and having previously served voluntarily on the club’s board of directors for nearly a decade. This change comes about following a request from Lambert and is a reduced hours position with a core focus on income, brand and key projects.
Club president Matt Devaney said: “I cannot overstate the contribution Dan has made to our club over the past 15 years, and I am delighted that this new role will see him continue to make a significant contribution in the years ahead.
“As we all welcomed the final confirmation last month that construction work on the redevelopment of Dalymount is imminent at the end of next season, the reality is that we would not have Dalymount Park, let alone a redeveloped Dalymount Park, as our home were it not for the efforts of Dan.
“In the years since our future at Dalymount was secured, Dan was never one to pat himself on the back for that. Instead, he looked to the future and spearheaded so much of the growth of the club over a great number of years.
“The strong position the club is in to kick on when we return to the developed Dalymount Park is a testament to so much of the groundwork laid by Dan. Nobody has understood the need for our club, as a members-owned club, to do things differently to remain competitive in an era of significant private investment at so many of our rivals more than Dan.
“I would like to think our members appreciate that fact. As well as his work on saving Dalymount Park, the growth in particular of our merchandise section, the number of committed community and commercial partners the club now has, and the purchase and plans for the Oscar Traynor Centre as a base for our academy and first teams simply would not have happened without him.
“The good news for us as a club is that this new role for Dan will see him focus on what he is the very best at, so I am delighted that he is taking on the position of Chief Commercial Officer, and I’m looking forward to the club reaping the benefits of his talent and all the experience he has built up in this area over the years.”
Lambert said: “It has been an absolute honour to be COO of this great club for the past five and half years. The progress we have made as a club in this period is considerable, and I am proud to have played a small role in it alongside brilliant board members, staff and volunteers.
“In recent times, however, my workload at Bohs, and in other areas, has become unsustainable. Having reflected on this and having spoken to the Board, we agreed that a change to Chief Commercial Officer and to reduce the hours worked will benefit the club.
“This role will focus on a narrower set of areas that we believe will deliver maximum value to our club – commercial agreements, merchandise, brand development, the Dalymount Park development and other key high value projects.”
During Lambert’s time as COO, the club’s internal structures, community reach and facilities have grown way beyond what most would have thought possible.
Lambert said: “In 2020, when I took up the COO role I worked remotely from a one-room office, and we had one other full-time member of non-football staff – the brilliant Lynn O’Neill who was soon departing for a well-deserved retirement.
“We now have modern and spacious club offices in Phibsboro Tower and a very talented and passionate non-football staff of 12 across administration, community, climate and merchandise.
“It’s not that long ago that we were renting a single Astro turf pitch at TUD for first-team training. Ahead of the 2021 season, we negotiated and developed a first-class facility at DCU. More recently, we acquired the long-term lease on the Oscar Traynor Centre, an 11-acre training ground currently being developed with a €0.5m sports capital grant, and trojan work from a volunteer committee, which will soon be the best facility in Irish football.
“We have gone from hard-working volunteers selling merchandise from old shipping containers in the Jodi Car Park, to now having four staff operating out of a modern retail and warehouse unit shipping 1000s of shirts every month globally.
“We had ‘the Bohemian Foundation’ doing brilliant ad-hoc work with dedicated volunteers, we now have several full-time staff operating ‘Bohs in the Community’ with a clear strategic plan and an independent social return report estimating €8.5m annually of social return locally, through projects that are still supported by club volunteers.
“We had a part-time team and hadn’t qualified for Europe in eight years and no multiyear budgeting, we now have an entirely full-time setup, long term budget planning on players, and have qualified for Europe twice under Keith Long in that period and now again with next year to look forward to under Alan Reynolds.
“We operated out of Dalymount Park with only 2750 ‘home seats’ and with no clarity on when any development would begin – we built the Mono Stand and upped home capacity to 4,000 with 2026 our final year before the stadium gets rebuilt.
“We had less than 700 members and now have over 2000 and waiting, this is the true measure of the health of our club.”
Crucial to so many improvements was a strategic plan developed by Lambert in conjunction with the club’s board.
Lambert said: “One of the most difficult challenges we had back then was to develop a strategic plan that was realistic. We did, and thankfully we actually managed to overachieve on most key metrics.
“This was all achieved as a collective, and in particular due to board members who were committed, knowledgeable and passionate about improving the key structural components of our.
“The board, past and present, deserve huge credit for this. They often chose medium and longer term thinking over short-term player costs, and this will stand to us immensely in the coming years.”
As Lambert assumes his new role, he does so looking forward to exciting times ahead, albeit with two years of certainty ahead as the club faces two years out of Dalymount Park during its redevelopment.
He concluded: “From going to games as a child, to becoming a full member, board member and then COO is something I will always cherish.
“Despite huge external pressures on the fan-owned model, we are competing and in many areas out performing private finance.
“We have some challenging years ahead as Dalymount is rebuilt but the future is bright. We can prosper as a collective and all be proud of the Bohemian Football Club, a club like no other.”