THE PROFESSIONAL APPROACH
THE THEORY THAT OPPOSITES ATTRACT IS RARELY APPLIED TO FOOTBALL, WHERE PROFESSIONAL CLUBS AND THE GRASSROOTS ARE USUALLY REGARDED AS THE ANTIPODES OF THE GAME. BUT A FASCINATING SESSION ON THE THIRD MORNING IN HAMBURG UNDERLINED THE NUMBER OF CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS WHICH HAVE BEEN FORMED IN RECENT YEARS – TO THE EXTENT THAT THERE WERE STRONG SUGGESTIONS THAT THE TIME MIGHT HAVE COME TO REVIEW THE TRADITIONAL PYRAMID SHAPE WHERE GRASSROOTS PROVIDE THE BROAD BASE AND PROFESSIONAL CLUBS THE NARROW, DISTANT PEAK.
The modern game is being reshaped, with leading clubs acknowledging the roles they can play within communities and realising that, apart from talent detec- tion and development, involvement at grassroots levels can broaden the fan base and foster long-lasting allegiances.

These messages were delivered by the two major pro clubs in the host city of Hamburg, by Robin Russell, a long-standing development and coach education specialist from England, and by AC Milan and their city rivals FC Internazionale.

The Hamburg clubs staged contrasting yet dovetailed practical sessions at their home grounds. Hamburger SV organised a training session involving technically gifted elite 11-year-olds. But, as the club’s amateur sport leader, Jörn Spuida, pointed out, HSV reach out into the community by organising activities in 27 non-professional sporting disciplines, involving over 5,000 active sportsmen and women. In football, HSV run six men’s and seven women’s squads but the club is also active in social integration schemes, joint ventures with schools, and holiday camps where some 6,000 children a year enjoy some ‘serious fun football’ at 30 locations throughout the Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Schleswig- Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania regions.

The relevance of offering school and holiday course football was underlined by Robin Russell. “In England, the most popular holiday courses are ones organ- ised by professional clubs,” he explained. “At the moment, over 900,000 Under- 16s come into contact with around 100 clubs: half a million via school programmes, 200,000 through holi- day courses, and 200,000 thanks to organised matchday visits to first-team fixtures. It means that there are 500 full-time staff working exclusively on grassroots activities and that those 100 clubs employ around 2,000 part- time coaches.”

In Hamburg, Robin tracked development over the two decades following a decision taken in 1986 to attach ‘community officers’ to 14 of England’s leading pro clubs.

“It was a far-sighted move,” he commented. “And a brave one. Because the community officers who came to the clubs were not ‘football people’. Their brief was to use government fund- ing in partnerships with the clubs, aimed at providing training and job opportunities for the unemployed; to involve minority and ethnic groups in social and recreational activities; and to attempt to reduce the acts of hooliganism and vandalism which had been the scourge of English football during the 1980s. In doing all this, they also helped to max- imise the use of facilities at the clubs.” The result was an unprecedented joint venture involving The FA, the players’ union, the leagues and regional asso- ciations, along with national and local governments which, by the early 1990s,had attached social projects to all 92 clubs in England’s professional leagues.

The benefits have been both tangible and intangible. Statistics confirm an increase in the number of children playing football and vital news to the professional clubs – in attendance at matches. But other dividends are less easily quantified in statistical form. Improved behaviour and a better image of the game have allowed audiencesto become more family-orientated and clubs have established closer links to the community. In other words, football has been primarily used as an effective medium to achieve social objectives which, in turn, generate knock-on benefits for the clubs.

This is very much home territory for Hamburg’s other major pro club, FC St. Pauli. As Roger Hasenbein, leader of the club’s Kiezkick social project launched in 2002, comments: “We are a city centre club, which means we have very little space but close ties to the community. Our current philosophy stems from input by the club and the fans on how FC St. Pauli can best meet demands in a deprived area. The Kiezkick project has been a big success because it has created an energetic mix of social insti- tutions, fans and sheer enthusiasm.It has been an important experience because it has made us aware of foot- ball’s tremendous potential for under- standing and bridging social differences.”

The philosophy is to create and fuel pride in the neighbourhood by offering chances to play fun football and gener- ate feelings of togetherness. Training sessions, open to all and free of charge, are run through the club’s fan shop at the stadium with seven members – mostly teachers – acting as youth train- ers for two-hour sessions a couple of days a week. As the neighbourhood features high percentages of immigrant families, as many as 14 cultures and languages can be grouped together in a single session. At the same time, the club goes out of its way to offer anappropriate welcome to girls whose parents might be reluctant to allow their daughters to play football. The club helps to organise tournaments involving boys’ and girls’ teams from schools, migrant communities and youth clubs, but the emphasis is on fun and integration rather than results. Social activities, such as bar- becues, allow the ‘family’ to get together and special relationships with two local schools give the kids access to gym facili- ties during the winter. In other words, FC St. Pauli is a striking example of a professional club which has driven deep roots into the local communities.

FC Internazionale Milano combine this sort of local approach with wide-ranging grassroots activities on the world stage. Roberto Samaden, head of grassroots development at the Inter academy, out- lined how the Italian club contributes to local football by bringing youngsters into the game in the 5-7 age bracket, by let- ting them play at four training centres in Milan and organising, every Sunday, tour- naments involving teams from other foot- ball schools based in Milan and the Lom- bardy region. In terms of player develop- ment, the priority has been to enhance the quality of training at the 53 affiliated clubs which form the Inter network throughout Italy. In the meantime, the club’s Inter Campus project, launched in 1997, reaches into 19 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Some 200 local instructors help to use football as an educational tool and, quite simply, to give around 10,000 children a year the chance to play some grassroots football. The projectis set to lay another milestone in Sep- tember, when children from the 19 countries will get together for the first- ever Toscana & Inter Campus World Cup, where the agenda features all sorts of educational and cultural activi- ties pegged to the football tournament.Hamburger SV players are involved in the club’s grassroots programme.
Not all clubs have the resources for such far-reaching global projects. But, in Hamburg, the clearly delivered message was that synergies between professional clubs and grassroots projects are mutually beneficial. As former German international Hansi Müller commented after reviewing VfB Stuttgart’s involvement with grass- roots development in a 200km radius catchment area, “apart from building ties with the clubs, this is also enor- mously positive for the players who usually take a different perspective on their ‘star status’ when they are brought close to the realities of life in the community which supports the club”