One to Watch: Adam Hill, Fussball-Experience

Growing up on a British army base in Münster, Scotsman Adam Hill developed a passion for football and competed in the amateur leagues. Years later, he settled in Düsseldorf, and in 2018 he revived his childhood dreams by launching the Fussball-Experience. The self-funded venture uses the ‘beautiful game’ to inspire and motivate young people by taking them on ‘insider’ tours of Germany’s Bundesliga clubs and stadia.

“Football gave me so much in terms of developing life skills and dealing with success and failure,” says Hill. After many years of working as a management consultant, he traveled to Central America to help underprivileged kids, which he found he “enjoyed a lot more.” On returning to Germany, he saw a business opportunity and a chance to do some good. “The U.K. Premier League promotes itself so well but German clubs have some serious catching-up to do,” he says. He now has relationships with six major clubs and a growing client base of international schools in Düsseldorf, which is home to 600 Asian companies and their families. The next innovation will be “organizing international tournaments for kids, especially in deprived areas, and women’s tournaments.” Hill, who sees himself as a “global citizen,” believes in breaking down cultural barriers: “Traveling changes the way you think. If people learned more languages, there would be less divide. Communication is our greatest challenge.”