PROmoting GendeR Equality in Sports – PROGRES

The PROGRES project aims to promote gender equality, encourage social inclusion and equal opportunities in the sports sector and specifically in football, by promoting gender mainstreaming within football federations and associations.


The project objective is to increase women’s participation in the management and administration of football associations and federations, while employees of these organisations and stakeholders in project areas will be able to identify the benefits of equal opportunities and adopt a gender-mainstreaming attitude promoting gender equality in football. The increased engagement of women in the male-dominated profession of administering football organisations and federations will serve as a model for advancing equal opportunities in football and will generate the potential for the project approach to be replicated in other sports.

The project’s approach is based on four stages aimed at identifying and addressing the inclusion of women in football federation management, thereby promoting equal opportunities and social inclusion in sports: identification and analysis of the gender gap within European football federations and associations; a collection of good practises of gender mainstreaming in sports organisations; capacity building of football associations and federation employees and sports stakeholders about gender mainstreaming; development of methodologies and tools for improving gender mainstreaming in football federations and association governance; and awareness-raising.

The European University Sports Association (EUSA), through the EUSA Institute, organized an informative workshop as part of the Promoting Gender Equality in Sports (PROGRES) project on Saturday, September 24 as part of the EUSA Convention. Participants included representatives from national university sports federations, European sports institutions, and representatives of the Organizing Committee for the 20 European University Championships, which will include football and futsal, in 2023. The event drew 61 participants from 19 different European Countries.

Additionally, three transnational partner meetings were held in 2022. In November, partners gathered in Oslo, Norway, for the final Transnational Project meeting and the Multiplier Sports Event sponsored by the Norwegian Football Association.

The project is led by the Malta Football Association (MLT), with the support of partners Centrul FILIA (ROU), TREK (GRE), University of Modena and Reggio Emilia  (ITA), Norwegian Football Federation (NOR), Football Federation of North Macedonia (MKD) and the EUSA Institute (SLO).
The project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, officially running in 2021-2022. For more information, please see https://progresproject.eu.