Live Your Goals in March
“We simply need more girls as there just aren’t enough women playing football,” said Dominik Thalhammer, coach of Austria’s women’s national team, in an exclusive interview with FIFA.com last week. Through its Live Your Goals campaign, FIFA is seeking to change precisely this situation by getting more young girls and women interested in football and inspiring them to play the game for themselves.
Live Your Goals (LYG) activities steadily gathered pace In March. Festivals were organised in Jordan, Bhutan, Paraguay and Palestine, while the Live Your Goals tour completed its run in Switzerland after making 23 stops in all the countries that have qualified for this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup™ 2015 in Canada. FIFA.com takes a look at the festivals held over the past month.
Jordan: Encouraging girls to follow their dreams
A LYG festival organised by the Jordan Football Association (JFA) in conjunction with the Local Organising Committee of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2016 was successfully held at the Prince Mohammed Stadium in Al Zarqa with a large number of girls attending from many different schools. One hundred and fifty talented youngsters aged between six and 14 visited and enjoyed the event under the watchful eye of 24 coaches and instructors. The festival offered the young attendees a chance to learn from their role models and LYG ambassadors Hiba Fakhr Al-Deen, Malak Shannak and Tasneem Abu Al-Rub, who shared their experiences of life on a football pitch and encouraged the girls to follow their dreams. The event also helped to generate interest in the U-17 Women’s World Cup 2016 in Jordan.
Bhutan: The fun of football is open to all
The festival held in the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan also proved hugely popular. More than 600 girls from all age groups took part in activities and games aimed at demonstrating that the fun of football is open to everyone. Nineteen instructors and school sport teachers took participants between the ages of six and 12 under their wing, offering tips for improvement and providing young players with another reason to show off their skills. Ball games and relay races were just some of the activities enabling the girls to let off steam and try something new.
Palestine: Heralding a new era
FIFA’s LYG campaign kicked off in Palestine with the help of more than 200 girls from different schools. The first festival at Al Bireh’s Amjed Asa’ad Stadium was organised by the Palestinian Football Association in collaboration with the country’s Ministry for Education. The arena was divided into 20 small pitches, with each of the 20 coaches present (ten sports teachers and ten grassroots instructors from the Joseph Blatter Football Academy) leading a team of ten children. Activities included coordination games and matches with smaller-sized teams. Smaller sides are particularly useful for children as they allow each player to touch the ball more often, understand the game more quickly, get as involved in play as often as possible and have more opportunities to score goals – the perfect basis for getting more young girls and women excited about football. More festivals are being planned in northern and southern Palestine, although the exact dates have yet to be confirmed.