Identifying Best Practice in Women's Football - FIFA/CIES ...

structure. An excellent example is Olympique Lyonnais and their integration of female youthteams into their academy system. Olympique Lyonnais has a 5.5 million euro a year trainingacademy. While it does not divulge the exact portion spent on female youth development, itdoes explicitly state in the financial statements that the youth academy services both genders.Likewise, additional resources such as academic tutors are also available and utilized by thefemale youth teams. 109 Similarly, as one of the first in England, 110 Arsenal Ladies Academyuses the men’s training facility for its on-field training, and also receives outside supportthrough the English FA. In 1997, The Football Association launched a Talent DevelopmentPlan for Women's Football, as part of The FA Charter for Quality. The Plan aimed to providea sound structure for the development of elite talent in the female game. Arsenal LFC nowruns one of these Centres of Excellence, and has incorporated it into their youthdevelopment. 1114.2.4 The Political FactorWomen’s football, like all sports, does not exist in a vacuum but is greatly impacted on bythe social and political context. Scandinavia, in particular, has a strong governmentalinfluence. The NFF made a decision to focus on creating facilities for young people to playfootball by building mini artificial football pitches all over Norway. While just this fact maynot directly translate into more access for girls, combined with the Norwegian focus ongender equality, it has created the right environment for young girls to be encouraged toparticipate in sport. This has resulted in one of the highest participation rates in the world,with almost a third of all registered football players in Norway being female. 112 Equality lawsin Norway have also resulted in it being mandatory for organizations such as the NFF to havefemale representatives on various boards and decision making bodies, resulting in a greaterfemale focus. Governmental actions have directly influenced the opportunities given to girls""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""109 Olympique Lyonnais, Annual Financial Report 2008/2009. Published by The OL Group.110 Arsenal Ladies (2010) The Arsenal FC Youth Academy [WWW]. Available from:http://www.arsenal.com/ladies/ladies-academy [Accessed 15/06/2010].111 Arsenal Ladies (2010) Centre of Excellence [WWW]. Available from: http://www.arsenal.com/ladies/centreof-excellence[Accessed 15/06/2010].112 Skille, “Norway”, 522."$:"