Rafal Jablonski: I support Poles in sports passion on Spanish soil
Today we will talk to Rafal Jablonski - a coach, sports manager and sports enthusiast who has developed his career over the years in Poland, working with soccer clubs and supporting young people in their sports dreams. He currently lives in the province of Alicante, where he promotes a Polish digital system for managing clubs and academies called sportbm among sports organizations in Spain and uses his experience to support parents and their children in developing their sports passions among the local Polish community. Rafal Jablonski will tell us about his work, daily challenges and future plans.
What prompted you to move your sports activities to Spain, specifically to the province of Alicante?
My move to Spain is closely related to my activity for the development of sports. In Poland, I played soccer from a young age, and fresh from the age of 18, I founded a soccer club affiliated with the Polish Football Association with two friends. This turned out to be a turning point in my life, because at that time I made the decision that I wanted to be professionally involved in sports. And so it happened. Many years of work in football clubs as President of the Board of Directors or Director of the Academy in Dąbrowa Górnicza, where I come from, allowed me to start working for the largest club in the region, namely Zagłębie Sosnowiec, where in a managerial position I gained a lots of experience.
Spain has always fascinated me and I've had a stronger connection to it since 2019, when I did a six-month student exchange at Universidad de Burgos. Mastering the Spanish language allowed me to stay connected to the country by being involved in the translation and general preparation of a club management application, known as sportbm, for the Spanish market. When the system was ready, I decided to move so that I could experience in practice and actively participate in the ongoing digital transformation of Spanish sports clubs. The choice fell on the province of Alicante, as it was the region where I had the greatest number of contacts among local clubs. Of course, the wonderful climate throughout the year was an additional a magnet attracting people to live here.
Can you tell us more about the sportbm platform and how it can support the organization of sports activities for both children and adults?
Sportbm is a Polish developer of club and sports academy management software. It creates intuitive tools for comprehensive management of academies and clubs for 30 sports disciplines. The company specializes in creating IT systems for sports federations and is developing its own SaaS platform for entities training children and young people. We provide clients with tools to manage and automate most processes, including administering collected data, organizing classes, conducting multi-channel communication, billing or planning the training process. The system has been very successful in Poland, so going to international markets, including Spain, is an immediate step forward. Coaches, coordinators and managers of sports organizations face the work every day with a lot of data and daily contact with many athletes and their parents. Sportbm is precisely designed to easily collect payments from class participants and automatically change their status, inform them of any changes in the schedule, check attendance or create reports to analyze their development. It is a tool for coaches, whose efficient work directly translates into the quality of training, which benefits the players.
What was your first contact with the local sports environment in Spain like? Did you encounter any difficulties related to adaptation?
My first encounter was certainly a surprise due to the lack of Polish accents in sports clubs. Poles mark, and clearly their presence in fitness centers, gyms, crossfit boxes, conducting personal training at gyms, but in sports clubs meeting a Polish player or trainer is really a rarity. At the same time, I have noticed a lot of interest in sports activities among the Spanish Polish community. On the Costa Blanca we have more and more Polish children, who not only go or will soon go to school here, but also have their own interests, and very often it is sports. I am successively receiving requests for support in the process of recruitment and adaptation of a player or athlete to a new environment. Club soccer, volleyball, basketball or handball, to name a few examples, are specific environments where, in the absence of Spanish language skills, it is quite difficult to establish relationships on the field with peers.
I quickly realized that I had everything I needed to help a young player take his first steps in a Spanish sports club. Mostly soccer players come under my wing, but I also receive inquiries about coaching volleyball, basketball, field field hockey and many other sports. Due to my extensive contacts, no discipline is alien to me.
Do you see differences between the approach to sports in Poland and in Spain, especially when it comes to working with children and young people?
Definitely yes. In Spain, the prevalence of sports is visible to the naked eye. A huge part of the population practices sports and is affiliated with sports clubs. This is also followed by a wide coaching staff, while in Poland we have considerable deficits in this area. Taking soccer as an example - in Spain, a coach can not only afford to work at one club, but once there, he has sufficient infrastructural conditions to implement training. In Poland, there is very often a situation in which one coach has to work in three clubs, and when it comes to organizing classes, he has only a quarter of the field at his disposal, due to the huge occupancy of pitches. Spain is certainly no coincidence that it is the European Football Champion - players in very qualitative conditions can afford to improve their skills every day.
What are the most common challenges faced by Poles who would like to enroll their children in sports activities in Spain? How can you help them?
The issue is most often very simple to define - lack of knowledge of the Spanish language and the rules of local clubs. At the same time, with the lack of knowledge of English by local coaches, we have the usual communication problem, which often creates an insurmountable barrier. That's why I saw the need to help all Polish sports enthusiasts, especially children and young people and their parents, to take their first steps in sports organization on the Iberian Peninsula. I will help you find the right club, organize a meeting or the first group or individual training, help you understand all the organizational arrangements and rules of the club, prepare a plan of action and help you acquire Spanish at a communicative level to work with a coach and teammates. In short, I will make sure that there is proper communication on the Club-Professional-Parent line.
What benefits do you see in involving children in sports activities, especially in the context of expatriate life?
First of all, we are talking about the social aspect. Children whose parents have traveled to Spain for work often have organized remote learning, which can cause the child to insufficiently develop interpersonal relationships. Being active in sports and being able to train in a club is the perfect environment to interact every day with peers who share the same passion. It's also the easiest way to learn Spanish - during sports, where the athlete is susceptible to so much stimulus, he naturally picks up new concepts that he puts into practice almost immediately.
What advice would you have for Polish parents in Spain who want to support their children in their passion for sports, but are afraid of language or cultural barriers?
I think it's worth realizing that there are definitely more benefits to playing sports than the inconveniences associated with it. Integration with the local community, breaking down cultural barriers, emotional development of the child, developing passions in the spirit of bilingualism are all positive aspects that are not found at home in front of a computer or phone. Playing sports in an international environment develops a young person holistically - every day both body and mind go to a higher level.
I cordially invite both Polish sports organizations operating on the territory of the Kingdom of Spain to cooperate with me, as well as all sports enthusiasts - children, teenagers and adults who would like to start an adventure in their discipline. Although I live in the province of Alicante on a daily basis, the scope of my activity covers the entire country, both the mainland as well as the Balearic and Canary Islands.
WhatsApp: +34 600 51 23 10
