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UEFA’s Together #WePlayStrong campaign is celebrating International Women’s Day 2022 with the launch of a TV commercial showcasing the positive impact of football on young girls’ lives.
Set to be broadcast during tonight’s UEFA Champions League action, “Skills For Life” demonstrates how playing football nurtures wider life skills, such as confidence, leadership, communication and resilience, that can help to set women and girls up for success on and off the pitch.
By portraying a world where women are equal and confident leaders in traditionally male-dominated careers, the commercial reinforces this year’s main theme forInternational Women’s Day – “Time to break the bias”.
Boosting girls’ participation rates in football
Launched in 2017, the Together #WePlayStrong campaign aims to increase participation levels among 13-17 year-old girls by shifting perceptions of women’s football – a key goal of UEFA’s Time for Action strategy.
With initiatives like the “Skills For Life” commercial, UEFA hopes more parents will choose football as a sporting pathway for their daughters, helping to boost overall participation rates for girls’ football across the continent.
UEFA is intensifying efforts to capitalise on this summer’s Women’s EURO 2022 final in England, which is expected to attract a new audience of girls and women with little or no previous experience of watching or playing football
The science behind sports participation
Aside from physical health benefits, a report by Ernst & Young and espnW says that playing sport helps girls be more confident and perform better in school, earning greater social and economic mobility, especially those from a minority group background. This is also supported by UEFA’s own research, stating that young women who play football report higher levels of confidence, self-esteem, well-being and motivation than girls who play no sports at all.
Proving sports can create pathways to success for young females, 94% of women in executive level positions report having played sports and 74% say a background in sports can accelerate a woman’s career, noting that former athletes tend to see projects through to completion, motivate others and build strong teams.
With football still commonly seen as a men’s game, UEFA Together #WePlayStrong works to change these misconceptions by not only inspiring young girls to get involved but also encouraging parents to introduce their daughters to football.
A 2017 report produced by UEFA indicates that family members are one of the most influential reasons why young girls become involved in football, however, outside research shows fathers who are football fans don’t introduce their daughters to playing in the same numbers or at the same stages as they do their sons. Additionally, mothers often don’t choose football as an extra-curricular activity for young daughters, meaning education on the benefits of playing football is critical to girls’ participation.
UEFA’s action to raise the game
Making strides towards equal coverage, UEFA recently partnered with DAZN and YouTube to air all UEFA Women’s Champions League matches live on the broadcast network and free globally on a dedicated DAZN YouTube channel. The ground-breaking deal ensures for the first time that fans from around the world will be able to watch every match throughout the season in one single place for free.
Programmes like UEFA Together #WePlayStrong and UEFA Playmakers, UEFA’s first pan-European grassroots programme for girls aged 5-8 years old in partnership with Disney, are critical to achieving the main goals of UEFA Women’s Football’s “Time for Action” Strategy – to double girls’ and women’s participation in football by 2024.
The new commercial is available to watch across the Together #WePlayStrong YouTube and Instagram channels.
