Paper Presentation VI:
The Organization of Women’s Elite Football
Saturday, April 10, 14.15–16.15

Laila Ottesen, Glen Nielsen, Marianne Brandt-Hansen
Dept Exercise and Sport Sciences, University of Copenhagen

While Danish men’s football dashes forward and is professionalised even in the lower divisions, Danish women’s football is fare from reaching a professional level.

A quantitative survey conducted by the Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences, University of Copenhagen of the players in the best division, “3F ligaen”, was carried out in October 2009. The main topics of interest were the players’ demography, everyday club life, motivation to carry on with and dropout from elite football as well as barriers to optimal levels of training. A special focus was put on gender relations within the coaching and team staff and on the experiences of being female within a male dominated national sport.

The survey showed that the Danish female elite players and among these also the National play-ers are more or less amateurs in a supposed elite sports world. Beside football the everyday life of the young players consisted of education, family and paid work, in a way which minimized the players’ ability to concentrate on their development as football players. In some cases it was even necessary for players to leave out their everyday training to attend school, study or work. Elite female player’s challenges with combining other areas of everyday life with being a footballer appeared to be more than just cultural gender challenges of identifying themselves as elite and professional footballers. A lack of economical resources was stopping most of the women elite players from devoting the necessary and optimal amount of time and effort to their training and development as footballers.

The need for action is present, as football is a growing female sport in Denmark which needs at-tention, acknowledgement and success to be able to fulfil the female elite players and their or-ganisation´s dreams of a higher level of performance. Better paid contracts and access to better facilities - and in the end the opportunity to become professionalized is needed if Danish female football is to keep up with many other football nations.