UEFA CFM Finland success

UEFA’s drive to help its member associations in particular to enhance their sports management knowledge is being expanded across Europe through the innovative UEFA Certificate in Football Management (UEFA CFM) programme.

Finland has completed its edition of the UEFA CFM – the first national edition to reach its conclusion since the new national editions concept was fully implemented. A total of 31 graduates have taken part in the Finnish programme, representing the national associations of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, as well as Finnish clubs and the players' union.

Specific courses are taking place in a number of countries in cooperation with various host associations, and involving greater numbers of participants, following successful pilot projects in Croatia and England. The latest editions of the UEFA CFM programme in England will finish shortly, as will the first editions in Germany and Georgia.

The UEFA CFM programme is linked to UEFA's Knowledge & Information Sharing Scenario (KISS) and aims to help UEFA's member associations reinforce their knowledge and management of sports, particularly football. The national edition concept is a natural evolution from the initial centralised UEFA CFM format, which used to be fully organised in Switzerland, and is enabling more people from the national associations to enroll in the scheme.

Topics covered include the organisation of football; strategic and performance management; operational management; football marketing and sponsorship; communication, the media and public relations; and event and volunteer management. The Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP) at the University of Lausanne issues the Certificate in Football Management, which is worth ten ECTS credits.

"In addition to the new knowledge you have acquired during the various modules and seminars," UEFA’s head of national association development Thierry Favre told graduates.

"I would like to insist on another benefit I see in the UEFA CFM being implemented at a national level; the relations and network you have built between yourselves, and with the Football Association of Finland. I was pleased because I realised the programme would notably contribute to reinforcing relations between the association, the clubs and the players’ union.

"The fact that employees of other Nordic associations took part in the programme was also a sign of the very good cooperation between your national associations," he added. "Such a programme can only reinforce these links even more.

"You are now part of a community of more than 150 UEFA CFM graduates," Favre continued. "This community is made of people who, like you, not only look on what is currently existing, but who imagine how things could be in the future.

"It is also a community which bears some responsibility. The knowledge you have learnt in the UEFA CFM is of no use if it is not applied. As new UEFA CFM ambassadors, it is now your responsibility to bring back this knowledge into your respective organisation.

"I want to congratulate you. I hope you have all learned something that you will take back to your associations, because this is what the programme has been all about,"  said Timo Huttunen, deputy general secretary of the Football Association of Finland (SPL-FBF) and the programme director of the UEFA CFM Finnish edition.

"I am sure that most of you will play an important role in European football, or maybe even beyond Europe, in the future – I wish you the best of luck," added Jean-Loup Chappelet, professor at IDHEAP and the dean of the UEFA CFM programme.

Stig Inge Bjørnebye, who played, among others, for Liverpool FC and won 76 caps for Norway, was a participant on the course. "The programme taught me a lot about the holistic approach to football management," said Bjørnebye, currently head of development at the Football Association of Norway (NFF).

"It gives you a clearer insight about a lot of the sides of football that you are not too aware of as a player. Overall, it's been a very good experience. It helps me with further developing Norwegian football, and hopefully my work on the programme will help others within the FA as well."