PUBLISHED BY UEFA’S FOOTBALL

DEVELOPMENT DIVISION

N O . 3DECEM B ER 2005

Editorial :Yesterday’s Child

• • •The Grassroots

Crusade• • •

What about the Girls?• • •

Big-Time + Small-Time = Great Time

• • •Summer Fun

GRASSROOTS FOOTBALL NEWSLETTER

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PAT BONNER, FAI TECHNICAL DIRECTOR,

AND ANDY ROXBURGH, UEFA TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, AT THE

OPENING OF THE FIRST MINI-PITCH IN DUBLIN.

I M P R E S S U MEDITORIAL GROUPAndy RoxburghGraham Turner

ADMINISTRATIONFrank LudolphIsla Kälin

PRODUCTIONAndré VieliAtema Communication SA Printed by Cavin SA

COVERPhoto: Polish FA – from the UEFA photo contest

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Yesterday’s child played football in the anonymity of the streets. Today,children are part of organised grass-roots programmes and are scouted.Only recently, one English coach toldme that his club had just spotted a‘natural’ – the player was four yearsold! Of course, the children’s footballenvironment has changed, and thereare many brilliant grassroots projects.The principles, however, which led to the development of great players in those misty, less commercially-orientated days of yesteryear haven’taltered. Street motivation was intrinsic,with a love of the game and a fascina-tion for the ball the dominant reasonsfor children to participate. If footballwas in the blood before the age of 12 years, it was there for life. The community encouraged it, the schoolspromoted it, and children loved it.

Yesterday’s child learned to be self-reliant, but according to former Swissfootball internationalist, Lucio Bizzini,the situation has changed in recentyears. “Caught in the trap of havingtheir free time organised by institution-alised sport and specialist trainingcamps, the children of today learn to bepassive,” stated the Geneva Universitylecturer. Spontaneity, independenceand free expression can disappear ifgrassroots coaches organise everythingand use direct teaching methods to drillhome their image of the game. Freeplay must be part of the developmentprocess and it was for this reason thatUEFA, as part of its HatTrick project,invested CHF 52 million in mini-pitches(free-play areas measuring 21 x 13 m)

for its member associations – a tangible message from UEFA about the importance of play areas for children and the need to stimulategrassroots football. The promotion of maxi-pitches (40 x 20 m), which are designed for small-sided games,will be the next phase of grassrootsfacility development.

Yesterday’s child learned by trial anderror, by experimenting, by constantpractice. Pelé, the legendary Brazilian,was exceptionally talented, but likeother players of his era, he practisedhis basic skills with fierce determina-tion. “I began to kick against the wall,to practise with both legs, kicking and rebounding hour after hour,” heonce explained. For those who coachchildren today, this daily practice withthe ball is often missing, and the grassroots coaches need to compen-sate, to find ways of speeding up skill acquisition, while still maintainingthe emotion of the game in their children’s programmes.

Yesterday’s child loved tricks and clevermoves, and during the vital foundationphase of development (9-12 years)they were hungry for imaginative skillsand adventurous play. Today’s grass-roots coach needs to replicate thelearning conditions of old. They needto create match situations throughsmall-sided games and practices whichencourage children to find their solu-tions to the game’s problems. Thisrequires creative teaching methods andis one of the reasons why children’sfootball is in urgent need of more foot-ball teachers; talented coaches whoknow the game, who can demonstrate,and who understand the learningprocess.

Yesterday’s child lived in a differentworld – an imperfect world of modestmeans and poor infrastructure wherefootball was, for many, the main formof entertainment, social interaction

E D I T O R I A LBY ANDY ROXBURGH,UEFA TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

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and creative expression. Today’s child, on the other hand, is bombard-ed by electronic and sporting options.But football still has much to offer the current grassroots player. AsJürgen Klinsmann, the head coach of the German national team, saidrecently, “Football means a lot morethan the professional game. It helpsto develop the children who will formtomorrow’s society.” Producing topplayers is a by-product of grassrootsfootball because it is more importantwhat football does for young peoplethan what young people do for football. Current grassroots schemesare booming, and there are many terrific examples, but maybe some of today’s coaches and grassrootsplayers, boys and girls, could learn a little more about self-reliance, commitment, and free expressionfrom the passionate young dreamers who played under the streetlights in the dim and distant past.

Jürgen Klinsmann, Germany’s national coach.

YESTERDAY’S CHILD

Lennart Johansson has always main-tained that “grassroots football is thefoundation. If the grass roots are notcultivated, football at all levels will suffer, and it is UEFA’s desire to helpthe associations develop thrivinggrassroots programmes.” UEFA’s‘Vision Europe’ document, publishedin April of this year, stresses thatnational associations are best placedto manage their own grassroots strate-gies but that UEFA has an importantsupportive, proactive role to play –notably in “gathering and disseminat-ing best-practice and project ideasbetween member associations, forexample by elaborating charters andconventions in different areas.”

UEFA’s Grassroots Charter is now a reality. On 20 September, UEFA’sExecutive Committee, at its meeting in Rome, formally ratified the pro-grammes of five member associationswhich had taken part in a pilot schemeaimed at establishing a viable blueprintfor the charter outlined in UEFA’sGrassroots Football Declaration made at the Conference for Presidents and General Secretaries in 2001.

By the way, some of the important ‘crusaders’ in this area have been the members of UEFA’s GrassrootsWorking Group created in November2002. They helped to elaborate theUEFA Grassroots Programme, which

was approved by the UEFA ExecutiveCommittee in Athens in February 2003and, once the UEFA Technical Commit-tee had endorsed the project, the UEFAExecutive Committee asked for work to go ahead on the Grassroots Charteron 17 November 2004. Within a year,five ‘pioneers’ had already put their signatures to the brand-new charter.

The five national associations werethose of England, Germany, the Nether-lands, Norway and Scotland. Theirexperience has allowed guidelines tobe drafted and one might say that,having designed and assembled therocket, we are now ready for lift-off.

In practical terms, that means openingthe door to other national associationswith a view to endorsing their grass-roots programmes under the terms of the charter. The main criteria arebased on ensuring that the coaches,leaders or monitors at junior grassrootslevels are adequately equipped tocoach children and youths; establishinga coherent players’ programme, offer-ing training and playing opportunitiesfor different age groups (children 5-12 and youths 12-19); a solid infra-structure in terms of facilities; and an equally solid underlying philosophy,built on the principles of promoting‘football for all’, fair play, anti-racismand other social values.

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ON THE FACE OF IT, DESCRIBING UEFA AS A ‘CRUSADER’ MIGHT SOUND

PRETENTIOUS. YET THE WORD DOES REFLECT THE ORGANISATION’S DEDICATION AND COMMITMENT

TO THE CAUSE OF GRASSROOTS FOOTBALL.

THE GRASSROOTSCRUSADE

PER RAVN OMDAL,

A UEFA VICE-PRESIDENT

AND A FERVENT

PROMOTER OF GRASSROOTS

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The obvious questions are: ‘What’sthe next step?’ and ‘How do I becomea member of the Grassroots Charter?’The answers will be provided in detail at a series of grassroots work-shops which will be staged on a geographical basis during 2006. All national associations will be invitedand the first batch of invitations willrefer to the inaugural workshopscheduled to be staged in Norwaynext May. The idea behind the work-shops is to set out the basic requisitesoutlined in the charter and to offermaximum encouragement and support to associations who wouldlike to meet charter standards or toevaluate the grassroots programmesin countries where those standardsmight already have been met. The more of you we can welcome on board the UEFA Grassroots Charter,the better… for the future of thegame of football.

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THE FIRST FIVE

ASSOCIATIONS SIGNED

THE GRASSROOTS

CHARTER IN ROME

IN SEPTEMBER.

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NORWEGIAN FOOTBALL LIVES

THE GRASSROOTS PHILOSOPHY.

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WHAT ABOUTTHE GIRLS?

THAT’S THE QUESTION BEING HEARD MORE AND FREQUENTLY AS NATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS

ALL OVER EUROPE PLOT THEIR GRASSROOTS STRATEGY. THE MESSAGE DELIVERED VERY CLEARLY

BY THE 5TH UEFA WOMEN’S FOOTBALL CONFERENCE STAGED IN OSLO DURING OCTOBER

IS THAT WOMEN’S FOOTBALL CONTINUES TO BE THE CONTINENT’S FASTEST-GROWING SPORT.

As Giorgio Marchetti, UEFA’s Directorof Professional Football, pointed outduring his review of the highly suc-cessful WOMEN’S EURO 2005 tour-nament in England, UEFA had cogni-sance of 251,218 registered femaleplayers in 1985 and 1,520,289 duringthe current campaign. As UEFA’s vice-president Per Omdal stressed on receiving his ‘guests’ in Norway, “We mustn’t have 400 people

discussing the present or the future of the women’s national team. Weneed 400 people organising footballgames for girls. We mustn’t start at the summit. The accent must be on the grass roots.” His country leads by example. Even in Norway, regarded as one of the front-runnersin the women’s game, the numberof girls playing football has increased by 30% since 2001.

As world and European champions, the Germans continue to set bench-marks for the rest of the continent. Tina Theune-Meyer, who has juststepped down from her pedestal ashead coach after nine years of sus-tained success, reported that some20,000 German girls are currently competing in the area where the grassroots are effectively nurtured.

This was also one of the points empha-sised by Sheila Begbie, head of girls’and women’s football in Scotland –one of the associations currently work-ing on upgrading structures and skills.She underlined the importance of wel-coming schools into the grassroots fold,not least because allowing young boysand girls to practise the same sportpaves the way for maximal efficiency interms of the use of facilities and staff.But it’s not just a question of gettingthe girls to run on to the pitch and kicka ball. Someone needs to take anoverview; there needs to be uniformityand continuity; football activity alsoneeds to be encouraged during thebefore-school and after-school periods;and the football played at grassrootslevels has to be dovetailed into devel-opment programmes capable of channelling players into league and

KAREN ESPELUND,

CHAIRWOMAN OF UEFA’S WOMEN’S

FOOTBALL COMMITTEE.

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national-team football. Hence the need to combine quality with quantity:to develop skills while the girls areenjoying a game of football.

Sheila mentioned the interactionbetween the top of the tree and thegrass roots, commenting that a success-ful national team encourages girls totake up the game. This was one of thepoints forcibly emphasised by ElisabethLoisel, head coach of the French nationalteam that has surged into the upperechelons of the women’s game in avery short space of time. “In 1998, wehad 27,600 registered players,” shecommented, “and the results of our ‘A’team were relatively poor. The nationalteam is now fifth in the FIFA rankingand, by the end of June this year, ourbalance showed 48,502 registered play-ers.” In other words, there has been a78% growth in a period of seven years.

If we’re playing the percentage game,it’s not entirely irrelevant that theFrench national association has, in themeantime, increased its budget forwomen’s football by 250%. Moreimportantly, a four-year action plan hasbeen devised, aiming at acceleratinggrassroots growth. The ‘football foreveryone’ concept is, as in Scotland,

applied at school level and amongclubs. At the moment 1,213 have girls’or women’s teams and the aim is to increase this figure considerably.

Obviously France has special parame-ters in that it is, geographically, amongthe continent’s largest territories. Thishas prompted the national associationto establish the ‘Centre d’AccueilFéminin’, a sort of central bureau thatwill help to supervise and work along-side schools, clubs, local authorities and so on. The plan is to set up, within French football’s 22 regions, nofewer than 102 of these centres.

Not all national associations, evidently,are equipped to copy the sort ofrecipes drafted by, say, the French,Scottish or German associations. Butthe different recipes can be adaptedto suit the ingredients in other fields.At the moment, only 33 of UEFA’smember associations have develop-ment plans for girls’ football. Use ofthe word ‘only’ may be a little harsh,bearing in mind the rapid progressmade in recent years. But the figuresindicate clearly that there is still agreat deal of work to be done interms of integrating girls into the pan-European grassroots campaign.

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BIG-TIME + SMALL-TIME= GREAT TIME

One way of creating this sense of integration is to allow the ‘small-time’players to see and feel part of the ‘big-time’. UEFA has acknowledged thepotential value of allowing footballers at the base of the pyramid to get aglimpse of life at the top. But what isthe best way to do it?

UEFA has been pegging grassroots projects to major events since the star-ball match was introduced in 2002

ONE OF THE PERMANENT CHALLENGES IN FOOTBALL DEVELOPMENT IS TO AVOID GRASSROOTS

PROGRAMMES FROM BECOMING ISLANDS WHICH THE MAINSTREAM OF FOOTBALL FLOWS PAST.

THE AIM IS TO CREATE ONE CONTINUOUS FLOW, WITH YOUNGSTERS STAYING IN THE GAME

AS PLAYERS, REFEREES, VOLUNTEERS, ADMINISTRATORS, SUPPORTERS OR TELEVISION VIEWERS.

as a prelude to the annual cup hand-over ceremony in which the UEFAChampions League trophy is returnedby the champions of Europe and handed to the host city to be placed on public display until the final. Thestarball match is a 24-hour five-a-sidematch contested in shifts by around1,000 players representing two ‘teams’,played on a mini-pitch dressed up tolook like a UEFA Champions Leaguevenue. The match is open to boys and

girls of all age groups with, obviously,the seniors playing through the deep-est of the night. Goals are plentifuland winning margins are usually slim.

For instance, the event in Istanbulprior to last season’s cup handoverwas the highest-scoring starball match,with no fewer than 850 goals scoredat an average of 35.4 per hour or one every 1.74 minutes. Despite the deluge of goals, the margin of victory was slim. The final scoreboardrecorded a win for the black shirts of Asia Athletic over the white shirts of Europe United by 427 to 423. But the important thing was not theresult but the fact that over 800 people had enjoyed a taste of ‘UEFAChampions League’ football.

The three starball matches played in Glasgow, Manchester and Gelsen-kirchen were so successful that theconcept was applied to the finals of UEFA’s two major club competitionfinals last May.

The UEFA Cup final in Lisbon coin-cided with the opening of the Quintadas Conchas complex – a huge parkand garden area that includes facilitiesfor sport. So a five-a-side tournamentwas organised as a joint venture

A SURPRISING

SCORE FOR FOOTBALL!

Paulo Sousa with some grassroots players before the final in Lisbon.

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WHETHER THE

STARBALL MATCH…

… OR THE FINAL

OF THE UEFA

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involving Lisbon city hall, the Lisbonfootball association and UEFA, withadditional support from sponsors, whowere also offered the opportunity to set up displays in key areas of Lisbon.The result was a four-day event whichreached its grand finale on the day of the final between Sporting Clube dePortugal and CSKA Moskva, with starplayers and other prominent personali-ties invited to play important walk-onroles during the tournament.

Games were played – with referees –on four 40 x 20 m grass pitches with 3 x 2 m goals within two age categories(11-12 and 13-14). A total of 400 boysand 200 girls took part, with the partic-ipating teams coming from the annualLisbon Games, local schools and spe-cial invitations by parishes in the citybased on fair play, sporting spirit andcommitment to grassroots causes. Each player received a medal, a biband other equipment such as caps and T-shirts. During the first two days, the16 teams in four groups played eachother on a league basis. On the follow-

ing two days, the format switched toknock-out with, for example, the winnerof Group A taking on the fourth-placedteam in Group B. On the last day, the finals were played; and the winnersreceived a special trophy during theawards ceremony that closed the event.

Within a day, a similar event hadkicked-off at the Fenerbahçe SK youthacademy in Istanbul. The UEFA YoungChampions event was a UEFA-ledgrassroots tournament pegged to theUEFA Champions League final with aview to giving youngsters a taste of thecontinent’s top club competition event.Just under 1,000 of them took part (all boys this time), split into 10-12,12-14 and 14-16 age groups, with 64teams of five in each category. Gameswere 4 v 4 (with rolling substitutions)on 30 x 20m pitches, with no goal-keepers and no referees. Each matchlasted 15 minutes. As at the starballmatch, pitches were UEFA ChampionsLeague look-alikes and adidas, apartfrom providing the matchballs, as theyhad done in Lisbon, also offered a skills

clinic and other features such as dribbling, juggling and shooting com-petitions, plus the opportunity for thewinners to be ball-boys at the final.

There were some interesting features.One adult was present at every gamebut players refereed their own gamesand decided their own substitutions.Parents were kept away from thetouchlines and applauded good foot-ball from ‘a respectful distance’. As inLisbon, the initial games were playedon a league basis and, during thisphase, the Young Champions provideda tremendous festival of football, withan outstanding attitude to the game, a lot of fun and an environment thatfostered fair play. Teams played high-risk football and individuals were pre-pared to run at opponents and displaytheir full repertoire of ball skills. So far, so good. Extremely good, in fact.

However, the point of recording all this in the newsletter is not just to celebrate past events. We travelledhome after the finals with some obser-vations and reflections that, we hope,will interest national associationswhich organise or intend to organisesimilar grassroots events, maybepegged to domestic cup finals orother senior events.

For example, a lot of the goals scoredin Istanbul were not the product ofsolo skills or passing movements.Instead, they were scored by a singlekick into an unguarded goal. So wouldit be better to include goalkeepers and enlarge the goals?

In terms of fostering control and skill,would it be better for the Under-12sto play with a size 4 ball?

And, maybe more importantly, it didn’tpass unnoticed that, as the knock-outrounds of the competitions pro-EM

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THE STARBALL MATCH IN ISTANBUL.

gressed, a degree of tension crept in – with all the symptoms which thatentails. The high-risk football of thegroup matches was diluted into lower-risk strategies; players were sometimesinhibited by the fear of losing, in thatthey were less willing to attempt tricksor to exercise their dribbling skills.

the line should be drawn in terms of the competitive element. We haveto find the right formula for encour-aging grassroots players to expressthemselves and enjoy themselves to the maximum without inhibitionsinduced by the ‘fear of losing’ yet, at the same time, without impairingor diluting the innate will to win.

But those are questions for us toaddress – not the players who wenthome with wonderful memories ofthe events in Lisbon and Istanbuland of their chance to feel part ofsome of the biggest events on theworld’s sporting stage. As organisers,we learned enough to be able tomake some fine-tuning to the logis-tics of the event but, when we headfor the 50th anniversary final at the Stade de France next May, theYoung Champions will, once again,be part of the grand finale to theUEFA Champions League season.

Posing with the champions’ trophy is a dream come true for these youngsters: UEFA vice-president Senes Erzik looks on (far right).

Instead, they opted for safety-first pass-ing. And, of course, nobody likes to seea youngster end a marvellous tourna-ment in tears just because his teamhas been beaten by a narrow margin in the quarter-finals or semi-finals. Wewere drawn into the perennial debateamong grassroots leaders about where

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The logistics remained unchanged.UEFA supported grassroots events bysupplying certificates of participationand by offering each national associa-tion 100 adidas grassroots programmefootballs and 150 T-shirts, plus an additional 50 footballs for each asso-ciation’s most valuable grassroots event and another 50 for the best disabled football event.

The 2004 menu had been fairlytasty and the heartwarming result ofthe repeat performance in 2005 wasthat the second helping was servedto almost three times as many. In2004, the news that half a milliongrassroots players had enjoyed somesummer football was greeted as aresounding success. So we’re shortof superlatives as we see from

figures supplied by our nationalassociations that the 2005 editioncomfortably topped the 1.3 millionmark even though, at the time of going to press, definitive statisticshad not been received from all 52 member associations.

From UEFA’s standpoint, it was alsoheartening to see how some of

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IN THE LAST NEWSLETTER, WE REPORTED THAT THE ‘SUMMER

OF GRASSROOTS FOOTBALL’ PROGRAMME LAUNCHED IN UEFA’S JUBILEE YEAR HAD BEEN SUCH

A RESOUNDING SUCCESS THAT FOOTBALLERS ALL OVER THE CONTINENT WOULD

BE ENJOYING A SECOND HELPING IN THE SUMMER OF 2005.

SUMMER FUN

Intense action in Armenia.

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our commercial partners for top competitions are also throwing them-selves enthusiastically into grassrootsprojects. Indeed, the Coca-Cola Cup in Belgium and the Danone Cupregional tournament in the CzechRepublic were among the front-runners in terms of sheer numbers of participants. But the lion’s share of the effort is being invested bynational or regional associations inschemes ranging from Slovakia’s ‘MiniChampions League’ to a tournamentfor girls in Latvia and a summerschool in the south-west of France for kids who would otherwise havehad no opportunity for a holiday.

The same applies to the events organ-ised in the disability football sector,

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ALL-OUT ATTACK IN THE NETHERLANDS.

Fabien Barthez makes time for a disabled fan.

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where practically the whole spectrumwas covered via specialised projectstargeting, for example, the deaf(Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia) or amputees(Russia, Ukraine). Other associationssingled out broader-band eventscatering for a wide range of playersunder Paralympics or Special Olympicsbanners. At the time of writing, nofewer than 34 national associationshad signalled their best event or festival for disabled players.

A Finnish grassroots poster.

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THE WINNINGGALLERY

S L O V E N I A

N O R W A Y■ ■ The silver-medal photo captured a split second fromNorway’s massive Landsturneringen national tournament, with a youngster about to make a great eyes-wide-shut save.

D E N M A R K■ ■ Third prize went to an image of the summer’sbiggest grassrootsevent – which offered opportunities to 130,000 players in Denmark. It’s a nice image of how grassrootsfootball embraces all cultures.

■ ■ The winning photograph arrived with a Slovenian postmark and was a great example of family involvement in grassroots football.

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■ ■ Second prize went to Belarus and a three-dimensional football scene.

■ ■ The winning drawing arrived from Cyprus – a colourful, dynamic painting of goalmouth action as seen through the eyes of a young child.

As in 2004, UEFA organised photography and art competitions, inviting participants to submit photographs and drawings related to the summer’s events and expressing the joy and the value of grassroots football. Standards were high and many memorable images were received at UEFA’s headquarters. Member associations which struggled to select their best grassroots event might be consoled to learn that we struggled just as mightily to select the medallists.

■ ■ The third prize was awarded to a work submitted from Ukraine,with the colours and, more especially, the face expressing the joy of playing football.

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