Dennis Wise is sitting in the main stand of the Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia, overlooking the most picturesque views any professional club in Europe has to offer, mapping out the run he takes around Lake Como each morning.
It is a 4.4-mile circuit in total, the route forcing you to double back halfway as the waterfront path disappears. It is still and serene. Just the way the 55-year-old, his irascible days on the pitch behind him, now likes it. It is for much the same reason he has enjoyed his start to life as CEO of the city’s Serie B side, Como 1907. All that, though, is beginning to change.
‘We’re quiet about it — plodding along,’ says Wise. ‘But we signed someone because we needed to go to the next level.’
Dennis Wise has overseen an impressive rise since becoming CEO at Italian club Como 1907
The someone in question is Cesc Fabregas, the former Chelsea and Arsenal icon joining the club on a two-year deal this summer. He is not the only big-name arrival in northern Italy, with Thierry Henry also becoming a board member.
It is precisely the kind of attention Wise has been able to escape for the past 13 years, ever since leaving his last official role in football as executive director of football at Newcastle United.
Wise left St James’ Park in April 2009, two months before the club’s relegation to the Championship. His departure came amid much anger from supporters, who in part blamed the former Chelsea captain for the undermining of Kevin Keegan during his second managerial spell.
The fallout from his time in the North East took its toll, resulting in a self-imposed hiatus from the professional game. So what has brought him back? ‘The fact I didn’t have anyone interfering,’ he says. ‘At other places,’ he says, then pauses. ‘Let’s just say I probably got blamed for stuff you don’t always do. But you’re the one standing there.’
They now find themselves in Serie B, and name Thierry Henry among their board members
At this point Wise is at pains to state his grievance is not with former Newcastle owner Mike Ashley. ‘This is nothing to do with Mike. Mike’s a good guy,’ he says.
‘[Here] I’m responsible for the lot. For me, it’s better to be responsible, because all the actions were my actions and I knew where I wanted to go with it.’
So far those actions have served him well. Since starting his work with the club in 2019, Wise has seen it climb from Serie D to Italy’s second tier in the space of three years.
It is not just on the pitch where Wise and the owners — Indonesian conglomerate Djarum Group — are looking to make a difference.
The club has launched a scheme, Como4Como, in which it aims to use only local resources by 2025. There is a similar approach towards staff. The Mail on Sunday is introduced to Abi, a maintenance worker at the stadium since 2021. Wise had offered him full-time employment after seeing him sweeping paths accompanied by a tips jar outside the mayor’s office.
Wise spoke of how in English football he ‘probably got blamed for stuff you don’t always do’
‘I like to help people. I was brought up in a working-class background,’ he says. ‘I was told three times I wasn’t good enough and then one person helped me. That person was Dave Bassett. He gave me an opportunity at 17 and a half years old when three other people just said you’re not good enough, you won’t make it and that’s it. If he doesn’t give me that opportunity then I will never be in certain situations that maybe I’d have had the opportunity to have been in.’
He applied the same attitude during his brief dalliance with the dugout in England. While his spells at Swindon and Leeds saw him fighting fires, his desire to give youth a chance shone through.
‘I’ve seen at academies that some boys get more opportunities than other boys, which is not correct, because the coach has made an opinion of him very quickly,’ he says. ‘I gave Fabian Delph his debut at 16 years old. When I asked the youth coach can you send me over your two best kids, he sent me over two that he liked. I then made a point.
‘On Thursdays we used to have a staff game and we’d play against the kids. I wanted to see for my own eyes. He clattered me, Fabian. I thought “You little git”. But I could see his rawness — wow!’
He worries, though, for the young players of today trying to burst out of the UK’s academy system.
Como have signed Arsenal legend Cesc Fabregas in an effort to reach the next level
A sentiment echoed by Bristol Rovers manager Joey Barton this week, Wise believes the idea of Under 23s football to be inherently flawed, questioning what kind of a footballing education is actually being delivered.
‘I don’t like U23s football. Never have, never will,’ he says. ‘I learnt my trade playing alongside old, experienced campaigners like Nick Holmes, Dave Armstrong when I was at Southampton. Steve Williams, people like that.
‘Trust me, you do learn a lot quicker from them, because they do give you a rollicking if you put the ball the wrong side or make a mistake in a certain way. When you have young players on the field, they’re not really educating each other, they’re just playing. The coach is the one that has to educate them, but I don’t think there’s enough good ones out there.’
Wise mentioned Fabian Delph as an example of why young players should be given chances
His thoughts in part explain the arrivals of senior professionals such as Fabregas, a shining example for the next generation to look up to. Clearly the Spaniard has been brought in to raise levels within the first team, too. A change in fortunes on that front cannot come a moment too soon.
The club is bottom after seven games and face second-from- bottom Perugia this afternoon. There has already been a change of manager, Moreno Longo replacing Giacomo Gattuso after health issues. A return to Serie A for the first time since 2003 is an ambitious aim but one well-documented by the owners. It is acknowledged by their CEO, too. Not that he worries about how his return is defined.
‘No. I don’t feel I have anything to prove,’ he says, when asked. ‘When I get my teeth into something, I do it because I want to do something. Look, it’s a beautiful place. People will sit on this lake and in time more people will know that this is a football club.’
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