UEFA launch #WePlayStrong campaign to change ‘uncool’ image of football

Tomorrow evening sees the final of the Women’s Champions League from the Cardiff City Stadium, the City’s second stadium, smaller than the Millennium Stadium where the men’s final will be held on Saturday night. But Championship side Cardiff City’s home was the venue for the 2014 UEFA Super Cup, when two goals from Cristiano Ronaldo helped Real Madrid to a 2-0 win over Europa League champions Sevilla.

That UEFA are taking the opportunity to bring the women’s final to the same city as the men’s final and on the same week is nothing new. Last year’s men’s final in Milan was preceded by a women’s final in Sassuolo’s Mapei Stadium quite a few miles from Milan, but the in 2015, both finals were held in Berlin, and in 2014, both were held in Lisbon.

UEFA’s plan for marketing the women’s game is gathering speed. This year’s final helps, too: Lyon and Paris Saint-Germain are two of the best women’s teams around, featuring some of the best players. The stadium is a top drawer ground, one that was deemed good enough to hold a UEFA showcase match just three years ago. And the referee is Bibiana Steinhaus, who will become the German Bundesliga’s first ever female referee when the new season starts in August.

It’s all just part of a plan to make women’s football a more attractive proposition for everyone. Of course, that’s part of a much wider process. The problem of quality is there: the small, sometimes old stadiums usually used for women’s game don’t look good on TV, the standard of the leagues and of referees need to progress, but all of that starts with one problem: if young girls don’t want to play the game, the sport is bound to lose exceptional talent right out of the starting gate.

To counter this, UEFA’s marketing boss Peter Willems said that the plan was to change the “uncool” image of football among girls at a young age. Taking its lead from the success of Sport England’s #ThisGirlCan campaign, UEFA have launched their own #WePlayStrong campaign, seeking to change the feel of the sport amongst girls who may be put off by its image before even giving it a chance.

Over the past few years, the women’s game has taken off in England, with Manchester City – a new team on the scene – reaching the semi-final of the Champions League this season and the women’s national team reaching the semi-final of the World Cup in Canada two years ago. It’s starting to capture the imagination, slowly but surely.

The challenge facing women’s football’s governing bodies is a big one, but in some ways it’s an exciting one. The chance to change the image of an entire sport to a generation of children is a genuinely exciting prospect, both from a creative and marketing point of view and from a social equality one, too.

Given the nature of the game, there is a long way to go, but the mere fact that the sport is to be marketed to children rather than adults shows that the length of the project has been taken on board.

In the end, tomorrow night’s game will still be played in front of a crowd barely a third of the size of the men’s game on Saturday evening in the same city, and the TV audience certainly won’t be anything like a third of Saturday night’s game, either. But if the #WePlayStrong campaign catches on as UEFA would like it to, the potential for the game is massive.

About author

Chris McMullan
Chris McMullan 831 posts

Chris is a sports journalist and editor of Digital Sport - follow him on Twitter @CJMcMullan_

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