At a glance

• Since: President of Como 1907 since November 2019
• Where he's from: Madiun, East Java, Indonesia
• Stadium size: Just 12,000 seats  one of the smallest in Serie A
• The result: 4th place finish in 2025/2026, first-ever Champions League qualification
  
  

In 2019, Como 1907 was one relegation away from disappearing. The club, based in a small lakeside city in northern Italy, was playing in Serie D  Italy's fourth division, the kind of league scouts don't bother watching. That's when a group of Indonesian businessmen, the Hartono brothers of Djarum Group, bought it. And they put an Indonesian film director in charge.

That director is Mirwan Suwarso. Born in Madiun on February 18, 1971, and educated at Purdue University in the US, Suwarso had no football management background when he took the job. He'd spent his career in advertising and film  Account Director at Saatchi & Saatchi from 2001 to 2003, then a director at Destiny Films, where he made titles like "Golden Goal" and "Merah Putih Memanggil." Before Como, he ran Mola TV, the streaming platform that brought Garuda Select and international sports content to Indonesian screens.

Who is Mirwan Suwarso and what does he do at Como 1907?

Mirwan Suwarso is the Indonesian businessman serving as President of Como 1907, an Italian football club based in the city of Como, Lombardy. He was appointed by Djarum Group in November 2019, right after the club's ownership change, and has led it from Serie D all the way to Serie A. In the 2025/2026 season, Como finished 4th in Serie A with 71 points, securing a spot in the UEFA Champions League for the first time in the club's history.

Credit : Instagram@msuwarso--- 

How did Como go from broke to Champions League?
Suwarso's move wasn't just about hiring better players. Como's stadium holds only 12,000 people — too small to compete on ticket revenue alone with Italy's giants. So instead of copying the usual playbook, the club leaned into something else: tourism.

The city of Como already pulls in visitors for its lake, its villas, its scenery. Suwarso's bet was to turn the football club into part of that draw  a sports destination people would visit the way they'd visit a museum or a lakeside restaurant. He's compared the strategy directly to Disney, describing the club as the "theme park" division of a bigger lifestyle brand.

"Maybe we (Como) shouldn't just be a football club. Maybe we have to be a sports tourism destination."  Mirwan Suwarso

The on-field piece mattered too. Como made a big call by hiring Cesc Fabregas, the former Arsenal and Chelsea midfielder, as head coach. Fabregas built a team that plays fast, attacking football  the kind that's genuinely fun to watch, not just functional. That combination of style and marketing is why actors like Andrew Garfield, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender, and Keira Knightley have been spotted at matches. Como isn't just a football club anymore. It's a weekend destination with a scoreboard.

Why does an Indonesian running an Italian club matter?
For Indonesian football fans used to watching from the sidelines of world football, Suwarso's story flips the script. He's not a player. He's not a coach. He's the person making the business decisions that turned a nearly-dead club into a Champions League side  and he did it using skills from advertising and TV, not from a coaching badge. That's the surprising part people keep sharing: the man who saved an Italian football club spent most of his career making commercials.