The Erasmus+ project iFLIPP - Innovating Football Leadership: Inclusion through Policy and Practice – that was granted by the European Union in 2020, has been completed in 2023 with the launch of a new website that includes all resources. The goal of this project was to strengthen gender equality and the inclusion of racial/ethnic minoritized groups in leadership positions in European professional and grassroots football. Jacco van Sterkenburg (Media & Communication department) was a co-applicant and Work Package leader.
The website provides the main resources and further information on the project and its European partners. Together with Palesa Mashigo (Media & Communication), Jacco has developed a MOOC (online training course) to further mainstream the leadership training and professional development in football governance, especially for women and minoritized ethnic men and women.
With Carmen Longas Luque, Arne van Lienden (both Media & Communication) and colleagues Agnes Elling and Rens Cremers from the Mulier Institute, Jacco as well coordinated the Governance Index. This report provides up-to-date overviews of and mechanisms behind the limited racial/ethnic and gender diversity in football leadership and coaching in 14 European countries. In September 2022, ESHCC hosted one of the transnational partner meetings in the project. The project leader of iFLIPP is the Fare network – a European network organization that works in the field of anti-discrimination in football.
Sport Media and Identity Network Conference
On a related note, Van Sterkenburg was invited to do the opening keynote, and participate in the closing panel, with media experts at the Sport Media and Identity Network Conference that took place at Northumbria University’s London location, on January 20. He shared findings from his finalized NWO Vidi project on mediated football and race as well as the Endowed Chair project on ‘race’, gender and the football industry. ESHCC colleagues like Arne van Lienden, Carmen Longas Luque and Palesa Mashigo also participate in these projects.
Given the racism that occurred in professional football in England and Italy last week, Jacco was also interviewed for the Belgian newspaper Le Soir on Sunday 21 October. You can read the interview on the website of Le Soir (only in French).
- Professor