Girls just wanna have F.U.N.

By Mikael Erävuori

The last decade has been an era of continuous growth in Finnish football. However, while the success of development used to be measured through the men's game, it is women's and girls' football that is now the big growth area in the Nordic nation.

National initiatives
Two important projects by the Football Association of Finland (SPL-FBF) have helped spark this surge of interest: the 'All Stars' programme - an initiative aimed at children launched in 1999, and the F.U.N. project, a programme aimed at women and girls launched in 2001.

Impressive results
The latter project - which takes its name from the Finnish words 'Futaa', 'Unelmoi', 'Nauti' ('Play football', 'Dream', 'Enjoy') received a huge response. A five-year project geared towards bringing more girls into the game, it has brought impressive results for the SPL-FBF.

Main purpose
The aim of F.U.N. is to introduce women to every aspect of football, and underline the fact that there is more to the game than simply playing. One can get involved also as a coach, a team leader, a referee, a club official - or simply as a spectator.

Education programme
"There have been several educational courses solely for women and girls," explained F.U.N. project manager Minttu Paavola. "These have encouraged more and more women and girls to become coaches, team leaders and referees."

Rising numbers
While the number of registered male footballers has risen by 14.3 per cent in the last five years, female numbers have risen by 38.9 per cent. At the end of 2004, the SPL-FBF had 18,771 registered female players making football far and away the most popular sport in Finland.

Club pressure
"Girls start playing football a little bit later than boys," said Paavola. "The youngest girls play along with boys in mixed teams. From time to time there are more girls wanting to join a team than the clubs can handle. Especially in the capital area this has become a small problem. It's not always easy for a young girl to find a club in her neighbourhood."

School involvement
An important feature of F.U.N. has been a drive to include football in girls' sporting curriculum at school. Traditionally, girls have not played football at school, but the SPL-FBF have drawn up special programmes to help the game fit in to girls' games classes. One interesting innovation to this end has been the introduction of 'soccerbic' - a hybrid of football and aerobics which combines football training with music.

National success
Paavola's work has been helped by the success of the Finnish women's national team in qualifying for the finals of UEFA WOMEN'S EURO 2005™ in England. Media coverage of the team has been very positive and Paavola believes the message about football is getting through to girls.

Sponsors interest
"Young girls can see the international players on television and newspapers," she said. "This is definitely a new opportunity for us and we must take advantage. There have already been some steps forward. For example the clubs are starting to get offers from sponsors. Earlier this simply didn't happen."

Big names
It is early days yet, but Paavola still hopes women's football can make the breakthrough as a spectator sport too. "It's difficult to say what will happen to spectator figures," she said. "However, this season we have several interesting players who are well known to the public from the national team."