Legacy in the making: How Ancillo Canepa is preparing for the future and risking everything

As president, Ancillo Canepa has witnessed more than 800 matches of his FC Zurich, with many more wins than losses. But last season was another disappointment, another year that has happened more often than he would like during his tenure.

Ancillo Canepa has been president of FC Zurich longer than Angela Merkel ruled Germany and Sepp Blatter led FIFA. Soon it will be 20 years, and then he will have been in office for the same length of time as his predecessor, Sven Hotz . When Hotz stepped down, exhausted at the age of 77, no one believed anyone would ever stay in office that long again.

But Canepa simply keeps going, for another season. A generation of FC Zurich fans knows no other president than him. And he has another plan, something he hasn't managed to achieve to date: to make FC Zurich more crisis-proof. So that he and his wife Heliane can one day leave with peace of mind. It would be their most important legacy.

Canepa is 72, Heliane is 77, and they have been married for more than half a century. They are the only married couple in professional football to own a club together. The question isn't whether they'll retire. It's when—and what comes next.

The hardest part of any era is its end. For the Canepas, it could be especially difficult.

Over the past year and a half, the Canepas have begun to practice letting go. It's like a slow withdrawal from the club that is their life. They hired former player agent Milos Malenovic as sporting director and gave him more power than any employee before. So much so that he's practically no longer an employee, but acts as if he soon owns the club.

And while the Canepas watch what happens, many are asking themselves: If the decision to bet everything on Malenovic was their last big idea for FC Zurich – was it really the right one?

Since Malenovic arrived, he has reshaped the club according to his understanding of performance and modern leadership. He acts quickly and uncompromisingly. Anyone who doesn't pull their weight has to go. For Malenovic, football is a business – tougher than the Canepas ever understood. They've long known that football is more than just a game. But they serve lemon cake when a young player signs their first professional contract. For them, FC Zurich is more than financial figures and results.

The Canepas don't like everything Malenovic does. His brash manner irritates them as much as it impresses them. But they stick with him. Why do they trust him so much?

Because the Canepas are the Canepas: emotional, loyal, and stubborn. And because they're convinced they always know best what's right.

That's how they've always been. That's how their presidency was, too.

When Ancillo Canepa became club chairman in December 2006, he was Switzerland's first full-time president. He earned zero francs and brought FC Zurich into the modern era. Canepa came from the consulting firm Ernst & Young, where, at 36, he was the youngest director and, by the end, the boss of over a thousand employees.

When he became president, he spoke businesslike, and the fans feared that he would run the club far too coldly. There were even posters saying they didn't want him.

Today we know: The fears were unfounded. In fact, the opposite was true. Canepa proved to be surprisingly emotional.

Anyone who really knew him wouldn't have been surprised. Later, we learned that his mother was embarrassed to watch him play football because of his temperament. As a young man in the military, he climbed a traffic sign and enjoyed directing cars. The playful and impulsive nature was always there; the suit and tie came later.

As FC Zurich president, he once broke his whistle during a match because he was so nervous and angry. And when FC Zurich played Real Madrid in the Champions League, he met former world-class footballer Emilio Butragueño at the Bernabeu Stadium and called out to him with childlike joy: "Emilio, Emilio, open your legs!" Then Canepa played the ball between his knees. That evening, the scene was broadcast on the Spanish television news.

Canepa has remained a player to this day, playing every Monday even at over 70. Last week, he played with the Swiss national team at the Over-65 World Championship and scored several goals.

What applies to football also applies to his relationships: Canepa plays, not tactics. He is infatuated with players if he likes their style of play or if they have a big name. This was the case with French World Cup winner Benjamin Mendy , who joined FC Zurich in the winter despite being charged with rape and sexual assault and later acquitted.

That's how it is sometimes with Ancillo Canepa: If someone catches him in a moment of enthusiasm, he loses his head and his stomach. There have been several occasions when Canepa has had to say to himself after such a moment: "Oh dear, did I just do something stupid?" Today, Canepa also knows that Mendy's involvement was a bad idea, but he wouldn't say so publicly.

Anyone who inspires Canepa doesn't necessarily have to be on the pitch. He's also repeatedly fascinated by employees in whom he sees something that reminds him of himself. Malenovic shares some of the ambition of the young Canepa, who, as an apprentice at the Rüti machine factory, had to sort mail and then worked his way up.

Canepa also always had this in him: supporting people and helping them advance. As long as they function in his way.

For many years, Heliane and Ancillo Canepa have been judging people according to a pattern. They are enthusiastic, they trust quickly, they remain loyal for a long time – and, if they prove themselves wrong, they are deeply disappointed. Once they have their trust, they can do a lot. If they lose it, they quickly become history. What they then say about former employees shows that the Canepas can hold grudges.

And there's another unspoken rule of personnel selection at FCZ: Whoever leaves is replaced by their opposite. It's as if every decision is a correction of the previous one, like a psychological reflex. After a young coach comes an experienced one, after an emotional one a sober one, and after one from the club, one from the big football world.

Often it is dissatisfaction that drives changes at FC Zurich, not a plan.

Marinko Jurendic, Malenovic's predecessor, was also his opposite: quiet and reserved. While Jurendic was accused of being inconspicuous, Malenovic is now accused of the opposite.

Now, Malenovic is in Canepa's favor. He's tasked with achieving what many before him have failed to do: position FC Zurich in a way that makes it more predictable. Under Canepa, FC Zurich won three league titles and three cups; he had moments of greatness, but never the staying power to institutionalize that greatness.

The club remained a feeling, a promise, an idea: not wrong, but never fully thought through. Now Malenovic is tasked with designing a system that will make the club less vulnerable to relegation. So that the Canepas suffer less and they cost FCZ less money.

There was a time when the club was close to its ideal. But that was a long time ago.

Canepa's paradox is: the longer he is president, the harder he has to work for success. The best came at the beginning of his tenure, and it came almost effortlessly. FC Zurich played in the Champions League. Canepa later said he didn't enjoy that time enough. The highlight was the 2009 home game against Real Madrid, when over 100 million people worldwide watched on TV.

It was a time when everything was just right. Canepa's ideas for the club were modern; he supported women's football, commissioned a club history, and opened a museum.

Back then, everything fit together, both athletically and in terms of atmosphere. Since then, Canepa has been searching for that feeling. He's seen 14 head coaches, five sporting directors, over 200 players come and go, and 200 leave. But it's never been the same again.

Every few years, the club attempts to restructure itself to become a reliable top club. Canepa brought the appropriate term from his time at Ernst & Young: "change management." If something isn't working, you have to change it. Canepa has been using the term for years because he senses that something is wrong with his club.

In 2013, Canepa told his then technical director, Marco Bernet: "Make something new out of my club!" Bernet was tasked with developing a playing style for the club and promoting more of its own talent.

A few years later, Canepa gave Finnish coach Sami Hyypiä carte blanche to reshape the club's sporting responsibilities as he saw fit. After the club's promotion in 2017, sporting director Thomas Bickel was tasked with organizing FCZ like Bundesliga clubs Leipzig and Hoffenheim.

The experiments never lasted long. They were then abandoned.

With Milos Malenovic, the Canepas want to do it right this time. Even if it hurts at first. But this beginning is dragging on. And it hurts more than the Canepas had expected.

An article from the « NZZ am Sonntag »