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Captains of Change grateful for week's lessons

UEFA's Captains of Change programme is underway, with participants learning invaluable lessons as they develop projects for diversity and inclusion in football management.

Captains of Change begins

Participants in UEFA's inaugural Captains of Change programme have made significant progress on their diversity projects after a week-long session of guidance.

They shared their key learnings with UEFA.org.

Louise Englefield
Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE); Pride Sports
I have picked up the need to be solution-focused and to take small achievable steps. The communication of messages is key. These learning points will help me focus on achievable outcomes and ensure we maximise the project reach. My next steps are to feedback to the [English] FA and devise a survey in order to consult LGBT coaches.

Lee Tavinder
Irish Football Association (IFA)
If I'm honest, I arrived on the programme fairly confident about my project and felt I had a pretty complete offering. Only when I started the programme did I start to understand what impact a programme within Captains of Change could have. I was very focused on the refereeing aspect but this week taught me about having a wider impact on football and creating a legacy through what I'm trying to achieve that can make football a better place for referees, coaches and volunteers alike. I also gained from speaking to people from other associations – many of the projects have crossovers and I have undoubtedly learnt at least one valuable thing from each participant.The next step is to gain support from every area of my organisation – I know I will get support internally from my development team but now it's about making this project a key objective and a thread running through everything we do. It's also about the cliché of walking the walk ... though I'm undoubtedly returning inspired from this week and know it'll be a big motivator to achieve the set objectives. I've realised this week that what I am doing is relevant to everyone I work with.

Rebecca Lee
UEFA
The key thing I learnt from the week is that inclusion is a real and crucial issue within all areas of European football. UEFA has a real opportunity to implement change and our organisation must lead by example. The next step for me is to return to work and start the implementation of my project. The training week has been fantastic for developing ideas and improving the projects but it is only with direct action that we will achieve our goals.

Soraya Benyoub
Football+ Foundation

Listening to inspiring people, reflecting on important topics and learning all these management techniques has given me the tools to made us improve our project day-by-day. Our project definitely benefits from UEFA's Captains of Change training week, but so will our other work on a daily basis. We return home with an advanced project to run in our national association.

Romuald Nguyen
French Football Federation (FFF)

This week has reinforced the idea that diversity is a strong asset and this seminar gave me the opportunity to learn about the several approaches and programmes existing in Europe. For me, the next step is in action: sharing with stakeholders to gather data about the existing actions.

Christine Cioboată
Romanian Football Federation (FRF)

For me this week was inspiring and empowering and helped me to form an idea regarding a clear action plan to implement in the association. Also, it was inspiring on a personal level and I actually changed the emphasis of my project from diversity to inclusion. I want to use the energy and the support that our network created to get more people involved [in the project] and to create a community that supports inclusion in football.

Andrej Pišl
Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE); Out in Slovenia

The training gave a good overview on project and change management and challenged all the participants to think about diversity and inclusion, also providing opportunities for the development of practical skills. For me personally, it was a great opportunity to review and analyse the project in more depth, identify the threats and try to find the solutions. The next steps in the project are consultations within the partners' network, confirming the action plan, working together on communication strategy and starting to implement the project.

Jennifer Malone
Scottish Football Association (SFA)

The whole week has been so valuable. Not only through the training and the inspiring insight from FARE, CAFE and UEFA staff but also learning from the other Captains of Change. We all know how important the Captains of Change message is but learning how to deliver that message with impact has also been important. The next steps are to take the energy and enthusiasm from this week back to my association to start gathering support and highlighting the benefits for all stakeholders. It will also be important to start taking action to begin the journey of inclusion and change.

Henrik Lunde
Football Association of Norway (NFF)

The most useful things I've learnt from this week was technical knowledge on project design and related issues. The next step is implementing the strategy.