#LWF e-Congress 2020: My main takeaways

Katherine Sheppard
19 oct 2020
4 Min. de lectura

Actualizado: 20 oct 2020

Leadership Woman Football held a two-day long e-congress last week. Originally, the event was going to take place in San Mamés Stadium, home to Spanish club Athletic de Bilbao, on the 26th and 27th of March, but the global pandemic made it impossible. In spite of this huge impediment, event organizers reinvented themselves (as many of us have had to do nowadays) and held their first ever online congress (their second one overall).

Reyes Bellver, Mônica Esperidião and Javier Marco Verdejo founded Leadership Woman Football in 2018. If you haven't had the chance to know more about them, definitely take a look at their website above. Coming from the legal, management and marketing side of sports, these three awesome individuals decided to create this platform to promote women in leadership roles inside the football world. From coaching to administration, their goal is to empower and give women more tools to develop themselves as football professionals and enter the workforce of the world's most popular sport. They currently offer mentorship programs and recently launched the LWF Academy, through which they offer courses and other professional development opportunities.

In my opinion, the e-congress was a total success. Everything went really smoothly and I learned a whole lot from all the speakers that were invited. For a hopeful football business professional like me, seeing so many women involved in the industry was quite inspiring. Also, seeing men participating and supporting the cause was reassuring.

Here are some of the facts, advice and insight from the congress that resonated the most to me:

About developing women's football

We should foster an environment focused on inclusion and fun in order to increase and maintain participation in young girls.
The power of Women's World Cups to showcase women's football as a high quality product in all aspects, to then follow through with a structure in each federation and in each league that keeps fans engaged throughout the whole year. Continuously build awareness of women's football and put it out there (broadcasting, social media, etc.)
Younger generations have a strong link to values and good causes, and football clubs and teams should incorporate that into their strategy to attract more of that audience.
The challenges inside grassroots football in the USA: how to help girls in difficult immigration situations participate in football, or how to get girls to continue pursuing football after collegiate soccer are two of those challenges. Creating more girls teams, facilitating the access to information about women's football, and creating a path to an actual career promoting a perseverant mentality are key to help with these challenges.
Discarding the concept that investing in women's football is a social responsibility. Women's football is an asset.
How investing in women's football can be a long term process that can yield immense results if you stick to it.
Sponsorship strategies focused on giving sponsors the opportunity to tell their story in a genuine, unique way.

About getting into the football business world

It's really important to be an expert in your area and creating a professional network in a strategic way in order to suceed in the football business.
Opening the doors for other women coming with you and behind you, and men actively involving women in the professional context as well.
Men recognizing they (as a collective) have been part of the problem, and putting words into action to help.
There are a lot of opportunities for women in the middle management level.
The importance of having women in leadership and decision making roles because of their talent and knowledge and not solely because of their gender.
Staying true to yourself.
Breaking through those "glass ceilings". For example, the preconceptions people can have about women being good at coordinating and organizing, making it harder for us to achieve board level positions.
The legacy of organizations still influences how things are done and how decisions are made to this day, but with COVID-19 shaking things up, some of these things have had to suffer change (calendar, competition formats, etc.) showing it IS possible to change how things are done, and evolve.
How COVID-19 has set a leveled playing field in fan engagement, forcing both men's and women's teams to be creative and keep fans engaged under more similar circumstances.
Must-have qualities of a leader: flexibility, generosity, hard work, and always being up to date, decisiveness, cultural awareness, respect, belief in what you do.
The importance of connecting football with diversity and education.
Women tend to be more afraid of taking risks, it is crucial we change this.
How to get into a leadership role in football: having the proper education, knowing how the industry works, assessing how your soft skills can provide a boost, invite and support other women that want to do the same, apply for that job fearlessly, find your role models, be a mentor and/or a mentee, be brave and creative to make yourself stand out.

Great things happening in women's football

The Argentinian Football Federation being the first one to create an Equality and Gender department.
41% of CONMEBOL's employees are women.
How the Coordinator of Women's Teams (Eduarda Luizelli) and the Coordinator of Women's Competitions (Aline Pellegrino) work together to better the women's game inside the Brazilian Football Confederation.
Glasgow City FC's motto: promoting all things female and all things positive. They have set themselves apart from the rest by establishing a strong relationship to the community and aligning sponsors to that goal. They have been able to secure sponsorship during the pandemic and reach the highest level of social media engagement they have ever had.
Angel City FC's birth: they went to the league, proposed the vision, and presented a product explaining how it can survive in a city like Los Angeles, which has other 9 professional teams across different sports, as well as important college teams. Then, they found investors that believed in leveling the field for female players. They built a project that connects with people and shows a clear growth opportunity. More than a football club, it is a platform for all those values they represent.
"You should get paid the value of the job you are doing" - Julie Uhrman (about equal pay). In their project, Angel City FC wants to include players in the revenue opportunities of the club and use their platform to drive fans to the stadium. Making players and fans part of the solution to the challenge of creating a professional club from scratch.