The women's game in Scotland has attracted the attention of UEFA as they can see that we can benefit from a little help from the organisation in raising their profile. A delegation from the ruling body has been in Scotland over the last few days meeting the movers and shakers in the game and today met with the media to find out what they felt was needed to promote the game and take it into the mainstream. BBC Alba, Sky, Scotland on Sunday, the Sun, The AwayEnd, SportPix and ScottishFitba.net were all invited along for a brain storming session which would be fed into the marketing strategy to be developed by UEFA's consultants.
Anna Signeul (National coach), Sheila Begbie (Head of Girls'/Women's Football at the SFA), Michelle Cox, Noel Mooney, Emma Sykes, Yasmin Villevoye, Jules McGeever (SFA), Julie Tudhope (SFA) and Ruud van der Knaap National coach Anna Signeul has improved the performance of the national side and the twelve team Scottish Women's Premier League ensures she has a ready pool of talent to consider for the international scene. At present, the twelve sides market the game as separate entities with varying degrees of success. Much of the work in the clubs is done on a voluntary basis around people's work/study commitments. UEFA has a responsibility for the promotion of the game and have identified eight countries which are ready for their help to get the marketing side of things on a professional footing. Scotland is seen as the right country to start the pilot process off as the SFA have the right people in place and ambitious clubs taking hard decisions to make things work. UEFA's Emma Sykes said: "We noticed there were no best practice examples or very few for women's football marketing, specifically in domestic flagship leagues or competitions. We got feedback from all 53 member association and it was felt that a major branding marketing sponsorship strategy was being ignored by UEFA. We decided to seek out those countries which needed individual assistance to help gain best example from countries that we felt were ready to receive marketing and branding help. We also decided to leave alone those countries which were already established in that area such as Germany, England and Norway. We felt it was best to leave them to continue on their own but focus the help on countries which are willing and ready and have the right structures and pathways in place to be able to build a bigger brand for their flagship competitions. Scotland was chosen for the first one because we know them, we know the people and we knew that they are enthusiastic about the idea before we came up with the pilot. They were very keen to set everything in motion straight away and made an excellent programme for our visit. They gathered all the partners we asked them to, clubs, players, media, fans even and everybody has been really positive."Source: FOOTYMAD
