Friday 24 August 2018, 05:56

Rennes hosts Europe's leaders in women's football

  • Women’s football leaders workshop held in Rennes

  • Led by Karl Lines, National Youth Engagement and Leadership Manager at the English FA

  • 50 representatives of European national associations took part

Wednesday 22 August 2018 saw a women’s football leaders workshop held as part of the Women’s Football Conference in Rennes, with some 50 (male and female) representatives from European national associations taking part.

A manager’s task is to take significant decisions. Before they can do that however, they have to take into account a whole host of different perspectives, knowledge and experience to make sure that the decisions are the right ones. The aim of this particular workshop therefore was to help those managers taking part with the decision-making process and to promote their development.

"We are here in Europe as part of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup to talk about women’s football – about women’s football at FIFA, UEFA and, most importantly, women’s football in your regions," said Emily Shaw, FIFA Women’s Football Head of Development and Governance to the assembled participants. "Moreover, we hope that it will be a good opportunity to create or renew contacts with colleagues from other national associations. Whether you are a coordinator, a manager or a director, you are all leading personalities in women’s football in your countries, and this day is dedicated to you."

Emily then handed over to Karl Lines, National Youth Engagement and Leadership Manager at the English FA, who took the participants through the five main themes of the workshop.

Focus points

  • Foundation work

  • Future Trends in Leadership Development

  • Tackling Information Overload

  • Investing in Resilience

  • Creating Leadership Habits

"At present, a quiet style of management is what young people are particularly looking for. This aspect is very important and is a highly modern concept," said Lines in his introduction to the workshop. "Up until now in my career, it has mostly been all about getting the best out of people. To do this, you need to make people feel comfortable. And that is what we are going to try to do today."

If the relaxed atmosphere at the seminar was anything to go by, then Lines certainly succeeded in that challenge. "Before the seminar, no-one knew any of the other participants but Karl managed to bring us all together in a very short space of time, and that was really good for us," said one of the participants at the end of the workshop, underlining not only the importance of seminars of this kind, but also highlighting three of the main elements of management, namely networking, perspectives and setting goals.

The workshop in Rennes was part of a newly-formed programme for the development of women managers, based on three main pillars and being carried out in three phases. The first phase, which took place in Moscow in June, was aimed at young women, while in the third, the emphasis will be on increasing the number of women in management positions.