iFlipp
The iFlipp project, which stands for Innovating Football Leadership: Innovation through Practice and Policy, will seek to assess recent research in the representation of women and ethnic minorities (WEM) in leadership positions in football in order to develop responsive inclusive leadership governance action plans at National and European levels.
The aim of the project is to increase and enhance leadership skills of women and ethnic minorities in football by creating and piloting a set of inclusive professional development training materials, transferable and adaptable for sport organisations.
The project will look to achieve its goals of supporting inclusive leadership practices and promoting equal opportunities and good governance in football by creating a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and producing European policy and action recommendations based on a co-created common position in a manifesto, endorsed by football stakeholders, to ultimately build capacity among and promote peer learning by/for emerging WEM leaders in football through the creation and nurturing of an enhanced network.
As part of the project, the EUSA Institute organised an informative workshop in June 2021. The one-day event gathered participants from football teams, sports organisations and institutions, and focused on the experiences of women in sports leadership roles. Participants dismantled gender stereotypes using two case studies before hearing the stories of two inspiring women who shared their experiences in football. the day’s concluding session encouraged participants to identify and address strategies and skills for women in leadership roles in sports organisations.
On September 7th, Erasmus University Rotterdam organised a conference to examine the project’s progress and determine the next steps in promoting women and ethnic minorities in football and sport in general. The meeting included a discussion of the project’s status, planning ahead for future activities, the final conference, project dissemination, and reporting and finances.
The main discussion highlighted the construction and publishing of the European Road Map, as well as the IFLIPP MOOC. This MOOC is a guide to diversifying and transforming football leadership, which includes guidelines on different topics related to football leadership and the exclusion of ethnic minority people from football culture. This guide is intended to help ethnic minority men, women, and organisations who want to develop their work within football. The MOOC presentation was followed up by a discussion among the partner organisations concerning access to this guide, its use at the leadership workshops, and its dissemination among the targeted networks.
The training course and the partners meeting is taking place in Ljubljana, Slovenia march 7-11, 2023. With the training course participants with the chance to begin designing their personal or organisational development plan and get feedback from experts who will be present in both workshops. At these workshops, the attendees will be able to hear more on the topics of leadership, network building, developing strategy, joining boards, building personal brands, and other requested topics in their fields of interest.
iFlipp is a three-year project which is co-funded by the Erasmus Plus programme of the European Union.
The projected is co-ordinated the Fare Network (NED), with six partner organisations including Hawar.help (GER), Integrated Dreams (POR), Erasmus University Rotterdam (NED), Portugal Football Association (POR), Malta Football Association (MLT) and the EUSA Institute (SLO), with the support of Europe's football governing UEFA as well.
Please see https://coursera.org/share/5c52809456ed8afdb15bf50e4781b972 to enroll to the free online course on the topic of Diversifying and Transforming Football Leadership, developed through the iFlipp project.