Football for All
‘Championing Women and Girls’ by using the power of football and sport to promote physical and mental health and well-being, active citizenship and inclusion within our community and places of interest.
Driven by both our clubs and charitable purpose, our values are embedded in a breadth of activities aimed at:
- advancing health and wellbeing amongst girls and women
- advancing public participation of girls and women in football
- advancing education, learning and employability for girls and women
- promoting equality and diversity
- providing recreational facilities, or to organise recreational activities for community participation
We progress these activities through three related strands of work:
- Our footballing academy
- Our community programmes
- Our advocacy and wider action
Strand 1- Our Academy
Our footballing Academy is a central tenet of our Clubs and Foundation’s approach. We currently have over 200 girls in our Academy, learning about football, about themselves as young women, and about Glasgow City’s values.
Aimed at widening opportunities for women and girls to participate in football, our commitment is:
To build and maintain a nationally recognised elite Academy from the bottom up
In doing so, we will develop and sustain activities associated with:
Football awareness, including:
- Football fun (for younger girls)
- Football development
- Game awareness and tactics
- Coach development
Personal awareness; including:
- Fitness
- Nutrition
- Strength and conditioning
- Mental health and emotional awareness
Personal potential, including:
- Leadership and team work
- Mentoring and role modelling
- Education and learning
- Employability
In addition, we will:
- Seek to develop our female coach base by investing in our current and recent +16 player pool
- Identify and arrange suitable access to high quality facilities for our Academy members, with physiotherapy and safeguarding arrangements that meet our best in class ambitions
- Explore evidence from academic and other elite sport sources and resources which might help inform what we do and how we do it
Strand 2- Our Community Programmes
Our community programmes build on our successful Academy model, but seek to extend these benefits to women and girls across the Greater Glasgow area and beyond.
Our commitment is:
To use the Glasgow City FC brand, resources and profile to make and sustain a meaningful and recognised positive impact on the wellbeing of women and girls in our communities
In doing so, we will develop and sustain activities associated with:
Football awareness, including:
- Football fun for children and adults (including our City Kickers programme)
- Football development
- Sister Clubs
Personal wellbeing; including:
- Fitness
- Nutrition
- Mental health and emotional awareness
Community development, including:
- Schools outreach
- City in the community
- Inclusion for all
Our community development thinking is at an early stage, but ranges from work we can do in the community through to using our own and other facilities and resources to provide space for individuals and communities to pursue activities and engagement that might otherwise be difficult to access.
Strand 3- Our Advocacy and Wider Action
Gender and inclusion-focused advocacy and wider action activity is in Glasgow City’s DNA. It is either implicit or explicit in everything we do, from charitable work to the recognition of the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on our 2020/21 first team kit.
Our commitment is:
To use the Glasgow City FC brand, resources and profile to lever positive outcomes for women and girls as a whole, helping to raise our national and international profile as a result
Our formal advocacy and wider action has gender inclusion, justice and wellbeing for women at its core.
Some of our key partnerships have included working with Zero Tolerance, to highlight the issue of gender based violence in our society and around the world; our partnership with Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust to raise awareness of cervical cancer and the importance of going for smear tests; and NeuroClin, to work together in advancing treatments for memory impairment, Alzheimers disease, Dementia and other neurological conditions. Studies have shown that not only are women more likely to develop these conditions but they are more likely to be care givers for people who suffer from them.