Women’s football: UEFA director Nadine Keßler: “Commercial progress necessary”

You no longer call yourself the head of the women’s football department at the European Football Union (Uefa), but rather a director. Has UEFA recognized how important women’s football is?

I’ve held the title for about two years. In fact, after the Women’s European Championship in England, we went from a department to a division and were therefore represented on the Board of Directors, which was a nice recognition of the development of women’s football in recent years.

Based on the Nations League, the European Championship qualification has now been played in a league system for the first time since Friday. Why the new format?

The biggest criticism of the qualification was always that there was too little competition in terms of sport. We had to work on that. We have already been able to reduce the number of games in the Nations League that were decided by a difference of three goals or more by 65 percent. Viewer numbers and ratings have more than doubled. The associations continue to hold the TV and sponsorship rights. There was a unanimous vote for the new format from large to small nations. Nations League and European Championship qualification are now a competition cycle with two phases and new elements.

Germany plays in a group with Austria, Iceland and Poland, but in another group three of the top five, England, Sweden and France, meet World rankings each other. Is that a happy constellation?

I can still remember the murmur in the room when the draw was made. (laughs) Of course this is a great group, but it also arouses particular interest. From the A league, the first and second place in the group qualify directly for the European Championships – whoever comes third or fourth still gets into the playoffs and plays with the best from leagues B and C for the remaining seven places. Anyone who is in the top ten in the world should still be able to assert themselves this way.

Interview

imago/Sports Press Photo/James Whitehead

Nadine Kessler is a legend as a player: with Potsdam and Wolfsburg, the woman from Rhineland-Palatinate became German champion four times and won the Champions League three times. In 2014 she was voted Europe’s Female Footballer and FIFA World Player of the Year. In 2009, Keßler was a member of the 13th Federal Assembly for the Saarland SPD. She has been working at UEFA since 2016 and as women’s football director since 2022.

Why the deadline pressure? Now the first double match day in April, the second at the end of May, beginning of June and the third in mid-July.

The new format described includes 18 match days. So we have no choice but to use every window in the international calendar with UEFA competitive games. Everyone was aware of that beforehand.

France, Spain and Germany will also be competing at the Olympic Games in the summer. You are robbing their players of their summer break.

When and where a summer break takes place must be defined individually in each country and also depends on how national leagues are scheduled. FIFA’s general calendar only determines when the national teams will compete. Most countries have a longer summer break after July 16th – except for the three that are going to the Olympics. Of course, the last few years have been extremely tough because we are playing five final tournaments in a row from 2021 to 2025 – also due to postponements due to Corona. That puts a strain on everyone.

Lena Oberdorf has already complained about losing interest in football at the 2023 World Cup…

Of course, the sporting standard has increased in all competitions, and more is demanded of the players as a result. There aren’t actually that many more games than there were when I played, but they have become more challenging. Therefore, individual load control, agreements between clubs and associations and the structures surrounding the team are of greater importance.

How can it be reconciled with growth so that closeness and down-to-earthness are not lost in women’s football?

I hope that we can position ourselves to be economically healthier without losing these values. Nevertheless, we need to make greater commercial progress. In Europe, five or six leagues are more professional, but many players are not employed full-time as footballers. But that is a goal that we are committed to.

The 2025 Women’s European Championship in Switzerland has competition from the first men’s Club World Cup in the USA with 32 teams, which partly runs parallel. Doesn’t that lead to conflicts of interest?

In discussions with FIFA, we are currently trying extremely hard to ensure that the major women’s tournaments are no longer played in August in order to give the leagues enough space. Of course it’s a shame because the men’s Club World Cup is a big competition, but we still hope to be able to maintain visibility for the women. The tournaments will take place in different time zones, so we try to avoid overlaps as much as possible. But it will no longer be completely possible.

What expectations does UEFA have for the Women’s European Championship in Switzerland?

We want to set new standards again in terms of spectator numbers, transport, organization and conditions for fans and teams. The budget will roughly double again compared to the last European Championship. Although we won’t have a stadium like Wembley, we will be able to offer 720,000 tickets, more than in England. We want to surprise the world with a big tournament! It’s also a huge deal for Switzerland. When was the last time there was an event like this there? Even at the men’s European Championships in 2008 there weren’t that many tickets.

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Ahead of the 2023 World Cup, the threat of a black screen has caused a lot of excitement in the core European markets. What are the TV contracts like now?

Good. We will be represented in more than 200 countries around the world with this European Championship and are in good discussions. There won’t be a black hole, I can say that much.

Will the 2025 European Championship be the last with 16 teams?

We are constantly questioning whether it is the right format in all competitions, but at the moment we have no plans to play with more teams in 2029. The last thing we want is a final tournament where the level of performance is no longer right. And we only increased the number to 16 participants for the 2017 European Championships in the Netherlands.

From 2025, the women’s Champions League will be played in a league system, just like the men’s, in which 18 instead of 16 teams will play. From England, Spain, Germany and France, there are complaints about the current format that their clubs are currently being eliminated in qualifying. This season, VfL Wolfsburg also got stuck at the hurdle. Do you understand the criticism?

That’s not exactly correct. We have optimized the Champions League format twice in the last five years and are now introducing a second competition soon, enabling a total of up to 91 clubs to gain experience at European level from 2025/26, so that club football can be at the top and Width gets better. The entry list for the Champions League will also be adjusted.

How?

Nine instead of four top teams get direct access to the league phase. Likewise, the third-placed club from the top three associations – to which Germany belongs according to the current rankings – will now start in the second qualifying round. For Germany, this specifically means that the champions and runners-up no longer have to play qualifying and that the third-placed team is only one round away from the future league phase. Therefore, clubs from the top leagues have an optimized position compared to today, but at the end of the day they have to prevail even if a stronger opponent comes a little earlier. A big name alone, often reinforced by the history of men’s football, is not enough to qualify.

Axel Hellmann from Eintracht Frankfurt recently said that the Women’s Champions League doesn’t make any money. When will that change?

I don’t know Eintracht Frankfurt’s budget in detail. What I can say: To date, the UEFA payouts in the Champions League are by far the highest amounts available for women in club competitions. Each club is guaranteed 400,000 euros in the group phase, with the winner receiving 1.4 million euros. And so that such payments to the clubs are even possible, UEFA invests or runs a significant deficit. These amounts must and should of course increase in the future. The sponsorship and media rights for the club competitions from 2025 have been re-tendered: We are of course hoping for a positive sign from the market.

At the end of the 2023 World Cup it was heard that the DFB to want Sign her up as managing director of sports. You avoided questions at the Fifa Congress in Sydney. How concrete was the flirtation with the DFB?

Discussions took place at that time; I can say that. There was interest, that’s true. But I think that everyone can live just fine with the current situation. I am very satisfied with my employer; and the DFB also has a very good solution (Andreas Rettig, Anm. d. Red.) found.

Your personal life has changed: you got married in January 2023 and you also became a mother.

Yes, we had a little boy, and that made me even more efficient, even more German. (laughs) Seriously: Of course, life changes for the better and you prioritize things differently. Sometimes the change in perspective that this change brings with it is very helpful. So far I have been able to balance family and work well. Maybe I’ve even become more relaxed in my job because I’m very happy about this change.