"Strategy women in football FF27" - DFB wants to "really step on the gas"

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The DFB women want to “set a bold exclamation mark” at the EM

Photo: IMAGO/Eibner-Pressefoto/Bahho Kara / IMAGO/Eibner

The German Football Association (DFB) has defined an overarching strategy for the future viability of women's football.

Under the title "Women in Soccer - Fast Forward", the association is pursuing four specific goals by 2027, as it announced shortly before the start of the European Championships in England (July 6th to 31st).

Accordingly, in the future there should be more German successes, an increase in the number of active players, more visibility and a higher proportion of women in DFB committees.

"We have to really step on the gas now to catch up and make progress," said Doris Fitschen, DFB strategy coordinator for women in football.

The German Football Association has lost half of its girls' teams since 2010.

Four goals that require "bold steps".

In the past few years, "we've played too hard, if we're successful, it'll be fine," added Secretary General Heike Ullrich during the press conference.

It's about "creating enthusiasm".

This requires “bold steps” and “holistic thinking”.

A concrete package of measures with various projects was developed for each of the four goals.

For more success of the national team or German club teams, among other things, the trainer training should be optimized or the support structure for young people should be improved.

Missed opportunities in 2013 and 2016

Most recently, the DFB had failed to boost the popularity of the Bundesliga after the 2013 European Championship triumph and the 2016 Olympic victory.

The average attendance there is still less than 1000 – while interest has grown in the other European leagues.

In addition, there are the youth problems at the base and the problems of the national team, which gambled away the 2021 Olympic participation with the World Cup quarter-finals in 2019.

Lose fewer girls

In order to increase the number of active players and trainers by 25 percent, more girls should be enthusiastic about football from an early age and access to it should be made easier.

Concrete:

• Use of the new forms of play in children's football and strengthening of girls in particular,

• plus easier integration into mixed teams,

• more matter of course, especially for parents and greater chance of forming girls' teams from the D youth, since the teams are smaller.

In addition, mixed games should be implemented consistently in all game and age groups in the amateur area (U 19 women in U 19/U 17 junior teams/women in men's teams) in order to create more playing opportunities and prevent drop-outs.

For better visibility, a greater attractiveness of women's football as a product is targeted.

This includes independent marketing, personalization of the players as in the latest DFB documentary or going into modern social media channels such as TikTok.

For the first time there will also be an independent tender for the media rights for the women's Bundesliga from the 2023/2024 season "in order to create an overall product of live and highlight broadcasts".

Monday games included.

World Cup application 2027 with Belgium and the Netherlands

»There is no single measure that brings success.

With the sum of the measures and the change in minds, I am convinced that the strategy will be successful," said Fitschen.

A contract for the 2027 World Cup together with the Netherlands and Belgium could help as well as a successful European Championship in July.

"We want to make a really bold statement with the European Championship," said DFB Vice President Sabine Mammitzsch.

58 percent of Germans do not want to turn on the EM

Meanwhile, more than half of Germans do not intend to watch European Championship games on television.

This is the result of a representative survey by the opinion research institute YouGov on behalf of the German Press Agency.

Accordingly, 58 percent of those surveyed do not tune in when the tournament is running with record European champions Germany.

In the YouGov poll, 27 percent said they watch some games.

Eight percent want to follow all DFB women's games or don't know it yet.

The team of national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg meets Denmark at the start on Friday (9 p.m. / TV: ZDF) in London.

ARD and ZDF will broadcast all 31 games on TV or via live stream.

The Internet sports channel Dazn also shows the games.

mfu/sid/dpa