Since 2010 the 37-year-old Soumah serves as president for the French national federation FFFA and just has ended his active playing career at last summer’s European Championships at Frankfurt, where he led France’s national team to its first ever appearance in an EC final. While emerging as one of France’s best players of all-time during his playing career Soumah already engaged in coaching – not only in France, but also in Canada – and similarity pursued his business career. Soumah holds Master’s degrees for Sports Business and Administration and for Environmental Systems Engineering from the University of Limoges. Since 2007 Soumah is engaged in the field of quality management for Veolia SA, one of the global leaders in the environmental and transportation industry.
„The challenges of EFAF in the field of business development have grown tremendously in recent years“, states EFAF president Robert Huber. „EFAF’s accomplishments have not gone unnoticed in the business world and we need to be prepared to interact with current and potential future partners on a professional level. When it comes to that, Marc-Angelo Soumah is just the ideal choice as Director of Business Development: He excelled as a player and coach on the playing field, has a proven record of success in the business world and on the other hand is also familiar with running a federation, which is quite visible with the recent development of the FFFA.“
Soumah not only engaged in promoting American Football, but also gathered insight into other kind of sports. An obvious choice for a Frenchman in search of the most challenging and demanding tasks he decided to accumulate experience in two of the country’s most successful fields of sports – team handball and rugby. In 2005 and 2006 he worked for the French Ligue Nationale de Handball, in 2007 and 2008 he oversaw the finances of Rugby Club Toulonnais.
As a football player he had started off in 1993 as a member of the Meteores de Nogent, before joining Flash de La Courneuve in 1997. In total he was a member of eight French national championship teams and in 2001 was signed as one of the national players for NFL Europe’s Frankfurt Galaxy. In his four years with the Galaxy he won one World Bowl ring and in 2003 was invited by the NFL’s Cleveland Browns into their training camp after his thrilling performances in Europe. After a year with the Hamburg Blue Devils in Germany’s GFL (2004) Soumah returned to La Courneuve to add five more consecutive national championships and help to elevate the French national team to its current playing strength.
Time to take the next challenge, and this time this will not be done dressed in shoulder pads and a football uniform, but rather in a business suit and tie. Soumah: „It is of great honour for me to be able to help in promoting the sports I adore that much throughout Europe. I thank the Board of Directors for its confidence into my person. As we all share common goals regarding the future of the game, I am sure, I will enjoy my new duties very much.“ And that stands even when the workload will be quite a remarkable one during upcoming months.
