ANPAleksander Čeferin in Aitana Bonmatí
NOS Voetbal•vandaag, 15:37
UEFA has developed a new six-year plan to take women’s football to the next level. The European Football Association plans to invest one billion euros until 2030 with the aim of creating a ‘sustainable ecosystem’ focused on training, further professionalization and stadium experience.
The new strategy has been named ‘Unstoppable‘. UEFA has linked a number of goals to this plan. The aim is to ‘make football the most played team sport for women and girls in all European countries while increasing the number of professional competitions on the continent’.
Ultimately, there should be six fully professional leagues and 5,000 professional football players in Europe by 2030. There are currently three professional leagues and more than 3,000 professionals.
Elaborate
Nadine Kessler, general manager of women’s football at UEFA, indicates on the association’s website that it wants to continue the positive developments of recent years.
“European women’s football has never been better. National teams and clubs are excelling thanks to huge investment, improved competition structures and thousands of emerging professional playing opportunities. It is our pledge to continue investing and moving the sport forward collectively.”
UEFA also presented a special strategy for women’s football in 2019: ‘Time For Action’. According to the association, that campaign was successful and it wants to build on that with ‘Unstoppable’.
Club tournaments
Within Europe, the Women’s Champions League is now the only international club tournament. There is still a group stage and then a knockout stage. The plan is to adapt the format with a competition phase, as has already been done this year for the men. The difference is that there will not be 36, but 18 participants for the women.
There is not yet a second tournament such as the Europa League in women’s football, but there will be one from next season.
