Tereza Doušová
Organising the UEFA European Women’s Championship Under 17
The UEFA, the national associations, dedicated officials, administrators and countless supporters and volunteers promote and nurture the women’s football and try to get involved in the sport as much girls and women as possible. There are still many national associations who are in the infancy regarding the women’s football among them the Czech Republic. By bidding for the organisation of the European Women’s Championship Under 17, the Czech FA has decided to change this situation and push forward the women’s football at a tremendous place.
Since beginning, the Local organising committee (LOC) had to deal with many challenges. During the development phase, the reconstruction works in two of the selected stadiums in Prestice and Domazlice took delay, the Ice Hockey World Championship took place at the same time as the European Women’s Championship Under 17. Moreover, the women’s football and the youth competitions are not that attractive as any national A team matches. Pilsen and other host cities are used to organise many other sport activities through the year so it was not clear this event could attract enough spectators. Especially that two of the stadiums had a capacity of 10 000 seats.
The question was clear. What should the LOC do to attract the spectators to such an event and to get them to the stadiums?
The LOC could take advantage of the previous experience of the other national associations who decided to pay the transport to the numerous schools and to get them to the stadiums. But the LOC has decided to do it otherwise, to go further than other national associations: to organise a unique project which hasn’t been done previously in any football association and which would attract a high number of the spectators. The additional program Football festivals full of sport and fun has been settled in the surroundings of each stadium with a various sport activities. Moreover, the incentive packages have been created – more kids were registered, better incentive package the institution (school or football club) could get. By this marketing strategy the organisers fulfilled not only the tribunes but promoted the Czech football at the schools by providing the football equipment and maybe convinced some kids to join the football family.
This additional program and the incentive packages could help the Czech FA to show the positive image of the association and prove that there are many projects that the association can do well.
Organising the Czech Football association and more specifically Czech football women’s department
As the Czech Football association structure is too complex, this case study is focused only on the Czech women’s football/department even if many factors which will be mentioned are interconnected and can be generalised for the Czech Football association.
The Czech FA is a governing body which manages promotion of football in the Czech Republic and creates multifaced and equitable conditions for football in all levels. It is nowadays one of the biggest associations in the Czech Republic with its 327 021 members.
In the past, the Women’s football committee was the only committee representing and running the women‘s football with the unique paid staff (a secretary) but with no specific competencies. With the time, the women‘s football is more involved in the professional structure of the Czech FA and run by the women‘s football department (nowadays 4 paid staff). The women’s football committee remains the advisory body to the Board with no decisions power. It is always the Executive Committee who takes the decisions.
As women’s football is more and more popular, it becomes new potential not only for the Czech Football association. Its department is recent and for being efficient within and outside the organization, some modifications need to be done. This analysis should help the women’s department to identify the main issues and their causes, find an alternative solutions and develop the strategy of their implementation.
In this case study, I have analysed the environment in which women’s department operates (internal and external factors – three basic dimensions developed by Henry Mintzberg). Afterwards, I have identified key issues which the women’s department has to deal with. One of the most important one is poor governance. And then, I have identified solutions/ways how to be more effective and allow the women’s department to determine its future actions. One of the solutions is to dissolve the Women’s football committee and hire a new leader who would have a control over the execution of tasks and responsibilities of each expert and would mostly oversee the strategic direction of the department and would report to the Executive Committee or General Secretary (further to Mintzberg theory, this director would remain as a middle manager).
