Change-maker, leader and empathic. From my perspective, Priscilla Janssens is one of the most influential women in sport, having excelled at the elite of football in countless of top FIFA and UEFA events worldwide. A true inspiration for those who seek to make a positive change in women’s football. Currently, she works for FIFA as General Coordinator, for UEFA as Venue Director and as an Operational Director for the foundation TopSport Community.
“Treating women’s football as a big sport, even though it wasn’t yet” is one of the most valuable lessons she learned from working with FIFA and UEFA. According to Priscilla, they took front-runner roles in growing women’s football as seriously as the sport deserved, increasing the number of participant teams and professionalism in tournaments. “If you don’t believe it will be big, nobody will believe it”. At the core of their strategy, caring about women’s football as if it was already a mature sport.
For the next FIFA Women’s World Cup, Priscilla was appointed as General Coordinator for Paris and for Nice for the 3/4 match. Comparing to 2015 Canada Women’s World Cup, she believes that “it is going to be a great tournament, with many more teams, more interest from sponsors and higher targets as 1 billion TV views”. However, Priscilla also recommends to have patience, as “we have a tendency to compare it to men’s football. It is not really fair because the development of women’s football is still 20 years behind”.
Regarding sponsorship, she believes that, as sports properties, “we should come up with ideas about how we can adapt to their strategy in order to setrengthen their brand”. Traditionally, there was a lot of bias towards women’s football, nowadays is a lot easier to attract the interest of partners. As an appealing asset, “the players have very interesting stories and backgrounds, something sponsors can build value on”. As a benchmark, Priscilla recalls how during the Women’s World Cup Germany 2011, different stereotypes of players were promoted to connect to different target groups and, therefore, spread the women’s game.
Priscilla also spoke about the magic and closeness of women’s football, where fans can get much closer to the players comparing to other sports. “We should really foster and cherish it, letting players to take time to meet and enjoy with fans”. Promoting autographs, meetings, pictures or training sessions were some of the mentioned examples. “We should also involve young fans, letting them be closer to the players”. Definitely, a core characteristic that men’s football doesn’t have and that should be protected.
Precious insights from a world-class football leader, you can enjoy the full interview here: