Lewes FC’s Equality Project Earns International Endorsement | 30.11.2017
Lewes FC, who you will remember are the first professional or semi-professional club in the world to commit to equal support for its men and women players, has confirmed the first international endorsement of its Equality FC project, by announcing a partnership agreement with the campaigning sports brand SKINS.
Lewes launched their ground-breaking Equality FC campaign back in July to help raise awareness of gender inequality in football. SKINS, who have purchased a life ownership share in the club, will now support Lewes in encouraging more opportunities within women’s and girl’s football both at home and abroad.
In addition to a commitment to pay, the Equality FC project provides equal resource for coaching and local grassroots investment to drive equal participation in the game. SKINS’ Chairman, Jaimie Fuller, who has campaigned on equality and ethical sporting issues across the world, is delighted to support Lewes FC’s aim of furthering gender equality in football.
Jaimie said: “As a challenger brand we’ve led campaigns against governing bodies including FIFA, the IOC and the UCI, but now we’re delighted to be supporting a community group which deserves maximum visibility. Lewes FC’s vision for true equality within football is one we’re proud to endorse.
“SKINS has developed a proud reputation for upholding what we call the True Spirit Of Competition within everything we do and, as part of the association, we’ll work to promote Equality FC across all our territories and specifically, with our partners and consumers across the world.”
Stuart Fuller, Chairman of Lewes FC said: “SKINS are not only a respected brand in the sporting world for their excellent products but also for their commitment to campaigning on some of the major issues impacting the sporting industry today. They share a number of our visions and values on equality and we are delighted that they have become one of our life owners as well as a valued commercial partner.”
As a community club, Lewes is wholly owned by its fans. SKINS life ownership share has been purchased in two ways. 50% of the share has been paid for by the company with the remainder supplied by staff and global partners. As part of the association, SKINS will provide an equal share of technical product for the club’s men and women’s senior teams.
George Becomes Everton's First Full-Time Ladies Professional | 27.06.2017
Gabby George says Everton Ladies will “develop and become stronger on and off the pitch” after becoming the Club's first full-time female professional footballer.
The 20-year-old defender has committed her future to the Blue Girls by penning a two-year professional contract.
The Toffees have been operating as a part-time club since their origins as Hoylake FC in 1983, becoming Everton Ladies Football Club in 1995.
The FA introduced the Women’s Super League in 2011, with the aim of creating a full-time top division within the women’s game.
And with Everton taking the vacant spot in WSL 1 for the 2017/18 campaign following Notts County’s liquidation, the Club has taken the decision to transition into a full-time organisation.
The move is a welcome one for George, who insists it will allow the Toffees to develop and improve.
She said: “It’s a great feeling to go full-time. This is a big step for us and hopefully the team can develop and get stronger on and off the pitch.
“I signed for Everton four years ago and we’ve seen other teams go full-time during that time. It was something I wanted to do personally and now that I’ve got the opportunity to do it, I’m very excited.
“This is the best place I’ve seen Everton in since I've been here. I’m excited about going full-time and seeing what that will do for us playing back in WSL 1. That’s been the goal for the past two years. We’ve got in now and need to stay there and hopefully show why we deserve to be in the top division.”
BBC Wins Sport Wins Rights to Show 2019 World Cup | 06.03.2017
BBC Sport say that extensive coverage of every game at the tournament will be provided by them, across television, radio and online.
"We're delighted the BBC will bring the biggest tournament in women's football to the widest possible audience," said director of BBC Sport Barbara Slater.
"Women's football has grown significantly over the last few years and we are proud of the contribution we have made.
"France 2019 promises to be another fantastic showcase for the sport."
Fifa secretary-general Fatma Samoura said: "The seventh edition of the Fifa Women's World Cup in 2015 reached record-breaking numbers of TV viewers and social media clicks, underlining global interest in the world's biggest single-sport event for women.
"As excitement grows around the eighth edition of the competition, we are delighted to work with the BBC to broadcast the ultimate event in women's football to even greater audiences in the UK via the BBC's TV, radio and digital platforms."
Everton Ladies captain tells the Everton magazine how she combines her football and teaching career.
The Everton Ladies midfielder, still only 26, has played in FA Women’s Cup finals, a European Championship final with her country, in the Champions League and in vital league games.
She is the captain of a Club that the women’s footballing world still can’t quite understand why it is in the second division of English football, a scenario it is hoped will change this year with promotion.
And she is also a teacher.
While the likes of Phil Jagielka, Ross Barkley and Leighton Baines have forged Everton careers solely focused on establishing themselves as key first-team players, Hinnigan has done so against the backdrop of becoming a fully- qualified PE teacher.
Watching friends like Toni Duggan and Brooke Chaplen leave the Toffees and become full-time professional footballers has been hard for Hinnigan, but it has been worth it to be able to balance two passions in her life, however hard that can sometimes be.
“I want to be playing football for as long as I can, but everyone has to have goals they want to achieve afterwards,” she reasons. “I’m lucky in that I have my teaching degree and that I am fully qualified. I could go full-time tomorrow in football, but I have to think of the teaching side of my career. I have grown a real love for that.
“It is crazy what you can do and achieve as a teacher. You don’t realise until you are in it and doing it. The feeling when you have young girls come up to you and say that they had never played football but now they love it is incredible. It is the same feeling as when you have won a game.
“If I moved to a club that is completely professional and full-time, then I would have to give up my teaching. But I have put in that much hard work – getting my education, going to university, the late nights studying, not having a social life because I had both that and football on. I like things as they are now.
“I have got something to fall back on after my football. I could be one injury away from hanging my boots up. It’s great knowing I have that degree under my belt. At the moment, everything feels perfect with my teaching and with Everton.
“I am in a local school – St John Bosco - and girls football is on the map there. They have brand new facilities and I have been trying to get Everton involved as well. I’m trying to link my job with my football and allowing the girls to see what we do here.”
By her own admission, in order to balance the two, Hinnigan lives her life on the clock. “I’ve been doing it for so long it has just become a ritual,” she continues. “My whole life, I have lived and worked by literally scheduling things in hour by hour in order to be able to time my day properly. Wake up, go to school, come home, go to training, have an hour or two at home.
“It is hard and you do make a lot of sacrifices. It is difficult to keep up with your mates and your social life goes out the window. You can’t go out on a Saturday night like the rest of them. I’ve missed family holidays, birthdays and things like that because of football. But I think everyone who knows me knows that my football is not just a little Sunday league side – it’s Everton Ladies and they know how important that is in my life. If they know I can’t make something it’s just a ‘good luck with your game’ and they get on with it. More often than not they come along to watch anyway.”
This season, however, the pressure is really on and Hinnigan will welcome all the support both she and Everton can get. It is high time they returned themselves to the top tier of women’s football in England. Like the skipper, the players know it, and are bullish about their intent on doing so.
“I look at it ahead of every year and my aim going into every WSL 2 season is getting promoted,” explains Hinnigan. “So far we haven’t achieved that but I always look at myself and ask myself what I can do better in the season to come.
“There is pressure and it only builds every season we are in this division, with people asking how a club our size is still in it. I’m no stranger to pressure and big games, and it is about trying to give my experience over to some of the younger girls.
“Last season we missed out on promotion by the skin of our teeth. This year is important for us and we need to know that we can’t afford to be in this league any longer. We have had two seasons in it now and it was gutting for all of us to just miss out last year. We believe we should be up in WSL 1 but its now about us putting it right and getting the job done.”
GAMEPLAN FOR GROWTH: FA Women’s Football Strategy Launch | 13.03.2017
Some basic reaction, info and links from yesterday's announcements at a snazzy and well attended launch event at Wembley Stadium...
Monday (13th March) witnessed a pretty epic set of bold and specific statements of intent with regards to the women's game from The FA and an honest acknowledgement of their failings, even if they did not go quite so far as admitting culpability. That these words came right from the top, from an organisation that has, in the past, struggled to move with the times and, and despite hard graft and great work from certain departments, failed to fully support all areas of the game, is a welcome and heartening sign.
The FA's CEO Martin Glenn, speaking of The FA’s Women’s Football Strategy, at a suitably purposeful press launch at Wembley Stadium, admitted that The FA had ‘let down’ the women’s game. However, they now intend to ‘right those wrongs’. While international rivals like Germany have backed their women’s program more comprehensively over the past two to three decades, in England, The FA have been slower to do so. "We even banned it in its pomp,” added Glenn, “and we were slow to introduce it. We are addressing these failings."
The FA regularly reviews its work and rejuvenates its aims and objectives every four to five years but yesterday’s announcement ramped things up a notch or five, and at the heart of the bold and encompassing new strategy is the drive and unifying force that is Baroness Sue Campbell.
A year on from joining The FA as Head of Women’s Football, her insight into what needed to be done to bring together the many strands of fine work being conducted by the band of passionate advocates she endearingly refers to as the ‘women’s pioneers of football’ and confidence that the right people given the right support can bring results, has surely formed the core of the strategy. (While her renowned ability for persuasive plain talking will surely have played a part in bagging some level of ‘buy in’ backing from the big guns like the Premier League too.)
Campbell lists amongst The FA’s goals the desire to change perceptions of the sport, to reduce social barriers to participation, for both the ‘serious and the casual participant’. If successful – and it will take enthusiastic involvement from schools and grassroots organisations on an unprecedented scale - then it could enable the game of football to transform the lives (and health and well-being) of countless women and girls. Alongside that zealous goal to get females active and engaged in football, is the competitive angle, the target of creating a winning England team that will ‘excel on the world stage’ and to be ‘the envy of the world’.
Kelly Smith MBE and Alex Scott joined the panel to talk about their experiences growing up playing the game, express their excitement at the plans and both also emphasised how important football in primary schools can be to young girls - they both missed out on the chance to play at school.
The message of the new women’s strategy fits perfectly into The FA’s vision that football is ‘For All’. It feels hugely encouraging to hear this acceptance that the organisation should be championing every aspect of the game, and for now at least, it smacks less of empty rhetoric and more of inspired determination. Of course, as with anything of this nature, the proof will be in the pudding but the desire at kick off at least, should be applauded.
If you haven’t got time to read the full thing (and admire the cool piccies in there), the new strategy and its main ‘Gameplan for Growth’ aims/priorities can be reduced in shorthand to encompass the following:
DOUBLE PARTICIPATION: To increase the no. of teams from 6,000 to 12,000, by 2020.
DOUBLE FANS: To increase average attendances at international matches from 11,000 to 22,000 and from 1,047 to 2,020 at WSL games, by 2020.
CONSISTENT SUCCESS ON WORLD STAGE: To be in the top three teams in the world, across all age groups and to have the potential to win the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
In FA Chairman Greg Clarke’s words, they wish to ‘transform an emerging sport’ and set a new benchmark. It’s great to see The FA realising the potential of women’s football in terms of strengthening the sport, rather than perceived as an annoyance or a drain on resources. This being, as he puts it in the strategy document: ‘the biggest single opportunity for us to grow our game.’
Other major discussion points arising yesterday were the intention to bid for a major international tournament in the near future, with the Euros in 2021 perhaps most likely (with France hosting the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, it is unlikely that Europe will get the nod in 2023) and also that The FA will push for a Team GB side competing in women’s football at Tokyo 2020, though that matter is partially out of their hands (and subject to qualification in 2019).
"Clearly we can't force that upon anybody - it has got to be done in a collaborative way," says Sue Campbell of the Olympics decision. "We have already started those discussions with the home nations and by the end of next week we will have met Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.”
FIFA Releasing Tatjana Haenni As Director Of Women’s Football | 16.02.2017
After 18 years, the Director of Women’s Football and President of FC Zürich dismissed women from FIFA and released them at the same time. FIFA’s position is somewhat too succinct.
Tatjana Haenni is not only known for women’s football in Switzerland. The founding member of the FFC Zürich Seebach is not only president of the successor club FC Zürich Women, and has thus played a major role in the professionalization of sport in the last decade in Switzerland; it was also the face of women’s football worldwide. She was responsible for women’s football tournaments, where she was responsible for the international development of women’s football around the world. The former national player was able to make her passion for the profession and reach a lot at FIFA for the acceptance of the sport.
The department is restructured
When another woman was nominated at the executive level of FIFA with Sarai Baremann, the hope was that this duo would give another boost to women’s football. It was Tatjana Haenni, however, who lost the job. At least, according to FIFA’s opinion, “In November last year, Sarai Bareman was appointed Chief Football Officer. She heads the newly created Women’s Football Division and reports directly to FIFA Deputy Secretary-General Zvonimir Boban and to FIFA management. The new department is currently being restructured and organized (also personnel). This is directly linked to the overall strategy for the development of women’s football.” A poor statement, which has not been further commentated and does not honor the undisputed achievements of the Swiss.
The “System Infantino”
Rather, this fits into the picture that FIFA has given since the takeover of the presidency by Gianni Infantino. “The swinging door of FIFA is crowded with employees who do not know whether they are going in or out,” Paul Nicholson said in his much-respected article at insideworldfootball.com in January. It is noteworthy that the speed at which Infantino replaces a large number of top management members with its own people, the FIFA specialist continues. This development has now also reached women’s football, making it one of the most well-known contributors, both nationally and internationally.
The job security and the energy to move something in the world football had given way to a great fear, Nicholson stated. The list of people being replaced or released is long. For Haenni, however, this is a weak consolation: “At the end of January, FIFA dismissed me, ended the employment contract and released me as soon as possible. I look back on 18 interesting, motivating, fascinating years in international women’s football. I have done my work and my activities with full commitment, conviction for the cause and with a lot of passion.“
Her commitment gave her great respect and a great influence, which she did not use for her own advantage but for the benefit of women’s football. The sport loses a big support. This is also true of their wishes for women’s football, both at club level and at club level: “For the future, I would like all sports organizations to make efforts to promote women’s sports and the representation of women in the decision-making committees and to make available adequate resources.” - Said Haenni against the women’s football magazine.
It is not only the eyes of men’s football that are aimed at the further events in the largest sporting club in the world. Even those who have only been interested in women’s football will in future be looking more closely at what is going on at the zoo in Zurich, because the “System Infantino” drifts even more strongly in exactly the same direction as football concluded after the Blatter era to have had hoped.
Indian Women’s League Launched - Six Teams in the Inaugural Edition | 24.01.2017
NEW DELHI: All India Football Federation (AIFF), the governing body of the sport in the country today (January 24, 2017) launched the first ever Women’s Professional League which is to be contested among six Teams.
All matches of the two-week Indian Women’s League (IWL) will be played at Delhi’s Ambedkar Stadium with the first match scheduled for Saturday, January 28.
Besides AIFF President Shri Praful Patel and Minister of State (I/C) Youth Affairs and Sports Shri Vijay Goel, representatives from the six Teams, as well as Ms. Sakshi Malik were present on the occasion.
Sharing his thoughts on the occasion Shri. Praful Patel, President, AIFF, said: Our women’s team is ranked 54 in the world which is higher than the men’s ranking of 129 which means that for the upcoming FIFA women’s World Cup in 2019, if we put in the right effort our Women’s team will have an outside chance of qualifying for the world cup before the men. This in itself is a huge achievement.”
“This is a beginning for the women’s game in the country. We are starting with six teams and hope to expand it to 16 by next year. This gives our women footballers the option to take it up as a career. I wish all the teams the very best and may the best team win,” he added.
Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports, Shri. Vijay Goel lauded the AIFF for launching IWL which he felt will “inspire the women footballers of the country to work towards a goal.”
He further added, “Since my dear friend Mr. Praful Patel is heading the football federation I expect Indian football to progress at a greater pace. This is a momentous occasion and today women are ahead of men in every field. I hope our women footballers will also earn greater laurels for the country. Whatever help is required from the Government and sports ministry, we shall ensure that all help is provided.”
The six participating teams -- FC Alakhpura (Haryana), Jeppiaar Institute of Technology FC (Puducherry), Aizawl FC (Mizoram), FC Pune City (Maharashtra), Rising Student Club (Odisha) and Eastern Sporting Union (Manipur) would play each other in a round-robin format with the top four teams advancing to the semifinals.
20 Teams from across 9 states had taken part in the first leg of the qualifiers from which 9 Teams qualified for the IWL prelims which were held in Cuttack in October 2016.
Dalima Chibber (FC Pune City), Oinam Bembem Devi (ESUFC), Sasmita Malik (Rising Student FC), Sanju Yadav (FC Alakhpura), Sumithra Kamaraj (Jeppiar Institute FC) and K. Lalruaizeli (Aizawl FC) represented their respective Teams at the launch.
The Football Association of Singapore announce two division women’s structure | 04.01.2016
The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) is pleased to announce that due to increasing interest and participation in women’s football, the Women’s Premier League will be reorganised to form a two-division structure from 2017. The 2017 Women’s Premier League (WPL) will thus consist of the teams that finished in the top six positions of this year’s WPL, while the new Women’s National League (WNL) will be made up of the teams that finished in the 7th-11th positions, along with any new teams.
Ms Fazilah A Latiff, Manager and Soccer Interest Group Advisor, Republic Polytechnic said: “We are delighted with the good work done by FAS over the past two years to develop women’s football in Singapore, and we are pleased to have the opportunities to participate in the women’s tournaments and other key events. Through our active participation in these events, our players have strengthened both in terms of quality and quantity.
“The popularity of women’s football in Singapore has increased and with the introduction of a new two-division system, more players will be able to play competitively, giving them a platform to advance their abilities. This will help nurture new talent and drive further growth and interest in the sport. Going forward, we hope more partners will come forward and support women’s football through various ways.”
The champions of WNL 2017 will be promoted to WPL 2018, while the last placed team of WPL 2017 will be relegated to WNL 2018. The second-last placed team of the WPL 2017 will play against the first runners-up of WNL 2017 in a playoff. The winner of the playoff will be promoted to WPL 2018.
The format of the two other women’s competitions – the Women’s Challenge Cup and the Women’s Youth League – remains unchanged. The exact number of teams in the WPL and WNL respectively is subject to change, depending on the number of teams registering.
Registration for all four tournaments is now open and will close on Monday, 9 January 2017. Participation fees for local teams will be waived, while expatriate teams will have to pay a sum of S$321 per tournament.
Teams interested in participating in the 2017 tournaments should write in to [email protected]. Expatriate teams have to make payment in person at the Football Association of Singapore, 100 Tyrwhitt Road, Jalan Besar Stadium, Singapore 207542 by 9 January 2017.
