Pauli Loukola
Manchester.
Jere Virtanen has become known as a serial entrepreneur, but also as the owner of the Helsinki Red Room private museum
Virtanen has no less than 38,000 items related to Manchester United, from jerseys to match programs.
Virtanen’s cooperation with the Premier League’s powerful club has deepened even more recently. He wants to organize the club’s fan events around the world in the future.
Last Saturday, Virtanen was at Old Trafford as an invited guest of Manchester United to celebrate the new George Best X Adidas collection.
A similar event was organized in the stadium’s 7 suite before the Manchester United–Tottenham match. Best played for United with, among other things, number seven.
As if being the George Best ambassador of the club, Virtanen brought from his collection the short-sleeved off-shirt worn by Best in 1967–68. Virtanen bought the shirt from Best’s teammate From Tony Dunne.
The shirt was literally handled with silk gloves at Old Trafford. In addition, Virtanen brought a club jacket designed and worn by Best himself.
Manchester United do not own any shirts worn by George Best. Another Best shirt brought by Virtanen is on loan at the Old Trafford museum exhibition. Its headquarters is the Helsinki sports museum Tahto.
Best played in the shirt in the 1965 match against HJK.
Virtanen has toured Manchester United supporter events around Europe and networked better and better with the club’s employees as well.
“I was on United’s pre-season tour of the United States the previous summer and I would have been there now, but I missed it due to illness. The theme is fan activation, which includes pop-up museums and whatever else can be invented,” says Virtanen about his cooperation with the club.
He has also helped, among others, the Romanian support association.
At Old Trafford, George Best’s shirt brought by Jere Virtanen was handled with silk gloves.
As a person outside United, Virtanen can create plans with a lower threshold. The club decides what they want to implement.
“Besides that, the club wants to support my own events. Next year we are doing a ’68 weekend’ in Finland, which will feature legends from the team that won the European Cup in 1968.”
Saturday the event at Old Trafford had 250 guests from 23 supporter organizations around the world.
The stars of the evening are the 1968 European Cup champion goalkeeper who played 433 matches for the club Alex Stepney and George Best’s Northern Irish Countryman Sammy McIlroy.
Stepney, 82, is in a good storytelling mood. He praises Best as a genius like his last name, and urges Virta to save the day for next year’s trip to Finland.
Supporting old players is one of Virtanen’s roles, even if that cooperation is not directly with the club.
Players have interesting stories to tell, but not necessarily marketing or digital communication skills.
Virtanen helps old players, and tries to organize, among other things, more legend games.
“I like to do things with fellow fans and players around the world. People are the best in everything. The club itself is tricky. It’s a big business, so doing innovative things is super slow and difficult. Fortunately, however, there are genuine United fans in the management team who invite me to places,” says Virtanen.
At the same time, Virtanen is already selling his latest creation, a children’s book about Manchester United.
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