After effectively concluding the 2019/20 Women’s Champions League in Spain, UEFA is more determined than ever to put its long-term strategy for women’s football in Europe into force.
Following Olympique Lyonnais’ victory in the 2019/20 UEFA Women’s Champions League final, President Aleksander Eferin underlined the determination of the governing framework for European football to put women’s football back in the spotlight.
Despite the enormous and immediate progress made through women’s football in recent seasons, the COVID-19 crisis has revealed the fragility of a game that is still in the early stages of building a long-term sustainable at the base and elite level.
“The consequences of COVID-19 will be felt through football for a while, but it is at times like those when UEFA is more vital than ever to maintaining long-term women’s football in Europe,” Erferin said.
“We remain fully committed to our long-term vision of women’s football set in Time for Action,” Erefin added, referring to the five-year strategy for women’s football presented through the UEFA Champions League for women in Budapest last year.
“We have already secured all the mandatory investment to put the strategy into force for the next 4 years. This means that we will continue to invest more than ever in women’s football,” said Eeferin, and emphasized that women’s football is a key pillar of UEFA’s overall strategy, Together for the Future of Football.
President Oeferin believes Sunday’s good luck from the last phase of the Women’s Champions League demonstrates the underlying strength of women’s football in Europe.
“The UEFA Women’s Champions League is one of the first women’s sporting competitions to return to the game,” Erferin said. “I am sure that this will revive the resumption of top national competences across the continent.”
Prior to the Women’s Champions League final in Spain, German club participants had resumed their professional activity. However, more than 20 European national competitions are already underway and 26 more are preparing to launch their 2020/21 women’s national season.
However, in the long run, UEFA believes that implementing its overall strategy for women’s football will be more than any tournament to ensure that women’s football recovers from this year’s challenges.
The last of Sunday between Lyon and Wolfsburg, the first since the launch of Time for Action. Despite the transitional unemployment of football, UEFA is on track to meet the great objectives and signals that measure progress against each of the objectives of the strategy.
As published in a first-year progress report, more women and women are playing football at all levels, the positive perceptions of women’s football continue and the economic price of elite women’s competitions is higher than ever.
“Together with our stakeholders and partners, we can be proud of how we have progressed in the first year of the strategy,” said Nadine Kessler, UEFA’s women’s soccer director.
“Women’s football has already become a strong position and has been resilient. Although the challenge is greater, it is not insurmountable. There’s a lot more to come.”
“These are impressive results, but we will paint more than ever, both for our first-year progress and to triumph over the demanding situations created by the existing circumstances,” said Erferin.
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