Football: More women’s power in German football

There has probably never been so much female power gathered on the campus of the German Football Association (DFB) in Frankfurt am Main: the seats in the “Golden Goal” room were filled with 150 participants at the first “Women in Football Summit” on Wednesday. They were united by their interest in working in the professional field of football. When welcoming the all-day event, DFB Vice President Celia Sasic, who is responsible for equality and diversity, told them that football needed to become more female because: “The idea that football and women don’t fit together is outdated.”

Nowadays, football is a future project for women at all levels, emphasized the former national player. The 36-year-old is one of the five women on the DFB board who are said to have brought about a cultural change. “Women’s skills are important in order not to be left behind internationally,” said Sasic. The EM ambassador mentioned the example of Canadian national coach John Herdman, who first coached the women and then the men of his country until 2023. »Women’s football is no longer a career dead end!«

At the DFB, almost 20 percent of managers and a third of the 650-person workforce are female. But in contrast, German professional football does not yet have much to show at club level: only four of the 36 licensed clubs from the 1st and 2nd men’s Bundesliga rely on women in management. There are currently six women working in top management. One of the male guests at the congress, Axel Hellmann from Eintracht Frankfurt, admitted that there was still “a long way to go” to real changes.

Diversity is actually a basic principle in the multicultural metropolis on the Main, said the Eintracht board spokesman. “Every form of diversity is anchored in our DNA.” Nevertheless, we ourselves have to do a lot better. With Nicole Kumpis, the President of Eintracht Braunschweig put her finger in the open wound of the Hessians from the plenary session: The Frankfurters don’t have any women on the board or supervisory board. Top official Hellmann self-critically called it a “task and challenge.” Especially for the entire club with 58 sports and more than 140,000 members: “It starts with an honest analysis: We have significant deficits. I have addressed the topic several times. We cannot order this from above. That has to come from the membership.«

Ultimately, integration is important for a club like Frankfurt that is ambitious in both men’s and women’s football in order to achieve performance: “We want the best minds and people – and they’re not just men. If you don’t do that, you won’t be able to achieve top performance.” The merger four years ago with 1. FFC Frankfurt was also made so that “sporting competence would diffuse” from women’s football.

At this point, the lawyer explained that he could very well imagine that at some point a woman would also train the male professionals. »There will be greater permeability right down to the appointment of female head coaches. Apart from FC Ingolstadt, it looks very sparse.” Will Eintracht eventually become the first men’s Bundesliga club with a woman as head coach? “When I look at who we have in the development of talent in the youth, I can imagine that.” What was certainly meant was Friederike Kromp, who, like her co-coach Julia Simic, is highly valued at Eintracht as a youth coordinator and U20 coach -Cosmos enjoys. Both regularly appear on television as experts at men’s games.

Overall, Hellmann sees it as outdated to pursue acquisitions from a purely male world. For the 53-year-old, not everyone has to know the history of Eintracht since 1959 to take a job in the heart of Europe. Women were given “a priority sign” internally at the Hessian Bundesliga club’s office. Since the summer, for example, former management consultant Christine Thoma has been in charge of implementing the strategy process. The HR manager should ensure better parity. However, the Eintracht boss didn’t want to pat himself too hard on the broad shoulders: “We’re not on a model path yet. We only did what was already done in the economy 15 years ago.«

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