“Anything that I feel very passionate about, I have a need to share it with the world.” These are the words of Agustin Cantero, a football fanatic and influencer who runs Debatable Football Opinions (DFO), an Instagram account with about 120,000 followers.
DFO is an account dedicated to posting about the latest, biggest and most debatable stories in the world of football, as well as interactive polls and DM submissions that users can vote for on his stories.
Born in Argentina, Agustin spent his early childhood growing up in Madrid where he was heavily influenced to become a Real Madrid fan by his father. Rather than support Real however, he instead chose to explore his passion for football on his own.
During that exploration he ended up discovering Serie A and his now-beloved Juventus as a result. He moved away from Madrid when he was 12 to Houston, TX where he’s lived ever since. It was here, in the Space City, that Agustin started DFO.
Starting Up
Six years ago, a younger Agustin was looking at the online, specifically Instagram, football scene and decided he wanted to contribute to it. He was inspired by a few accounts, most notably @italianfootballtv, and resolved to create his own.
“When I started there weren’t a lot of accounts, and the quality wasn’t that high… I thought to myself maybe I can make my own.” That’s exactly what he did, and now 120,000 people tune in to the interactive content that he posts daily.
“I just thought this should be a common ground to just talk about football and just debate all day without being judged; without the toxicity that’s always involved. I just started not really thinking much of it and here we are now six years after.”
Keeping it going
Throughout these six years, his commitment to the page has never wavered. However, running an account of DFO’s size alongside all of his other commitments can be “very time consuming and can be very overwhelming.”
Over the years, DFO’s place within Agustin’s priority list has changed. He’s gone through periods where it’s been his full-time job whereas more recently, it’s become “part-time” alongside his other priorities such as his bartending job or his girlfriend.
Having this account has allowed him to perfect his time management skills in order to accommodate DFO within his wider life. He makes time to do his story polls and DM responses as well as knowing when to look around for content to post.
Alongside his Instagram he has a relatively inactive TikTok with over 40k followers where he posts shirt unboxing videos alongside the Instagram content. He also has an X (Twitter) account where he posts regularly on current footballing events as well.
Revenue and Sponsors
The popularity of DFO is such that it generates a good amount of money for him. He gets contacted either mostly by email or via DM by predominantly football shirt companies asking him to promote them in his videos, on TikTok and elsewhere.
On TikTok he gets a new sponsor every time he posts, which can be weekly or monthly. He knows they just want him to promote them, but at the same time he isn’t going to turn down the opportunity to make a bit of extra money.
On Instagram, he is part of their newly implemented bonus program, which pays him per view on all his content, not just Reels as it used to be. “Any post that I make … I get some sort of income. It changes a lot though, it varies.”
He also considers himself “lucky enough to have a long-term promotion going on with a website that has funded the DFO account for a while.” He is in the fortunate position to be able to make money from one of his biggest passions in life.
Future
Despite doing this for over half a decade, Agustin is still as dedicated and committed as ever to growing DFO. His passion for football, and by extension his account, is what has fuelled him to keep going and that shows no signs of stopping.
With football becoming part of his job, however, he has had to reevaluate the way he thinks about the game. He is still insanely passionate about it, but he is not just a fan anymore and his relationship with football has changed as a result of that.
“Once you make your passion your job, something definitely happens there where it’s like ‘ugh now all of a sudden this thing became a little stressful.’ I’m still very passionate about football but things have kind of shifted and changed a little bit.”
He’s not looking for an ending to his Instagram story just yet, but he has reflected on the circumstances that could surround it. “The day that I don’t wanna pick up my phone and do polls, answer DM’s, or watch a football game. That’s the day.”
He sometimes takes days off from posting, allowing him to be active online regularly without it becoming overbearing on the other aspects of his life. He commented that “it’s important to take those days where you don’t really feel like doing anything.”
For Agustin, the paramount message however is that “It’s all about passion! Whenever I see my passion fully die out, if it ever does, that’s when I put the phone down and I move on to other things.” That shouldn’t come for a long time, however.
The post “It’s all about passion!” – How DFO’s Agustin Cantero has kept going for so long appeared first on Sports Gazette.