FIFA World Cup and European Championship-winner Stephanie Jones will be taking on the role of President of the Organising Committee for the FIFA Women's World Cup 2011. The 34-year-old, who plays for German champions Frankfurt but will be hanging up her boots in summer 2008, was officially presented on Friday as head of the OC at the main offices of the German Football Federation (DFB) in Frankfurt-am-Main.

"It is a great honour that the DFB has decided to show such confidence in me by naming me President of the OC for the 2011 World Cup," said Steffi Jones. "I am delighted to take on this challenge and all the related tasks, with a view to the fantastic development of women's football and the incredible opportunities presented by the fact that we are organising the 2011 World Cup on home soil."

She is convinced that "with the enthusiasm generated by the World Cup wins of 2003 and 2007 as well as the experience gained from the 2006 World Cup, that 'a time to make more friends' in Germany will become a real highlight that has a global effect for girls' and women's football. I am looking forward to working with DFB president Dr Theo Zwanziger and with the entire World Cup OC."

"We are pleased that in Steffi Jones, we have a famous and successful international footballer as President of the 2011 World Cup Organising Committee," said DFB President Dr Theo Zwanziger. "Her remarkable success on the football field makes her one of the top names in the world of women's football."

"Steffi Jones' career is a perfect illustration of the sport's powers of integration, which are becoming ever more vital as far as our society is concerned," continued Zwanziger. "Through her commitment to the 2011 World Cup, she will doubtless be able to further raise the profile of women's football on a national and an international level. That she is so close to the heart of the game will help our efforts to continue to develop girls' football in a decisive way. I am sure that with her down-to-earth, friendly personality, she will become a very popular representative of the 2011 World Cup."

Successful Steffi
Her well-stocked trophy cabinet and warm personality make Steffi Jones as popular as she is famous in the world of women's football. For the past 15 years, the girl who grew up in the Bonames area of Frankfurt and who went on to win the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2003 has been an ideal ambassador for women's football thanks to her regular success on the domestic and international fronts. When Germany won the European Championship in 2001, Jones and Doris Fitschen formed perhaps the best central defensive partnership that women's football has ever known.

She won titles on both sides of the Atlantic, with her 2003 success in the US professional league playing for Washington Freedom standing alongside her five Women's Bundesliga successes with 1. FFC Frankfurt (2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007). She also won the UEFA Cup (2002, 2006) and the German Cup (2001, 2002, 2003 and 2007). She retired from international competition in spring 2007 and will hang up her boots for good at the end of the 2008 season. But before then she is looking to win the triple with her hometown club - namely the league, the German Cup and the UEFA Cup.

Steffi Jones is also a great ambassador for women's football off the pitch, as a representative of the city of Frankfurt and when providing expert commentary for TV channel ZDF. The daughter of a German mother and an American soldier, Steffi was awarded the Hesse Order of Merit for her honorary service and commitment after spending many years fighting for integration and tolerance throughout her home country of Germany, most notably as patron of the "Ballance 2006" initiative.

Jones, who is an avid mountain-biker in her spare time, is currently taking a football coaching course at the German Sporting Academy in Cologne, and it is her aim one day to go into management, be it with a men's or a women's club.

Football - making dreams come true
Steffi by no means had it easy on her way to the top. She grew up without her father in a very underprivileged neighbourhood. In kindergarten and during her early years at school, she was picked on because of the colour of her skin. Her elder brother Christian fell into delinquency and drug-addiction.

Steffi however made wiser choices and invested all her energy and passion into football. For her, the game was very much the stuff that dreams were made of - incredibly ambitious dreams that would later become true.

In November 2006, her family was rocked by the news that her younger brother Franky, aged 22 at the time, had lost both of his legs in a bomb attack during active service for the US armed forces in Iraq. "When he was wounded, it put a lot of things into perspective in my life - things that I used to say were a crisis or a catastrophe," says Jones, who makes no secret of her criticism of the ongoing conflict in Iraq.

Again it was football that came to her rescue. Only a few weeks after the accident, it was business as usual for the 111-time international who was back at the heart of the Frankfurt defence.

Jones, who was born on 22 December 1972 in Frankfurt-am-Main, is now preparing for a new challenge, with her work as President of the FIFA World Cup Organising Committee to begin on 1 January 2008.