EFDN Members participating in the Walking Football League project virtually met on 30 March. The project targeted at people who are 50+ years old is funded by the European Union and runs for 2 1/2 years from January 2021 to June 2023. Nine partners from six countries – Norway, Hungary, Portugal, Germany, UK, Spain – are participating.
First, the club representatives shared their experiences in the current situation and their respective countries and talked about the ideal time frame for the project.
The clubs were got also informed that they no longer need to transfer the participants to grassroots clubs but are more flexible based on the individual needs, possibilities and circumstances and can, e.g. create their own leagues or form partnershpis with other organisations, companies or institutions. Formal aspects such as division based on age or competitiveness were introduced to inspire further exchange about possible and helpful solutions.
Then, Florian Wolfrum from Bayer 04 Leverkusen shared the club’s experience setting up a local Walking Football League and thus provided a practical example for the other project partners. Based on the pyramidal structure of German football, the club decided to work together with the regional football federation Fußball-Verband Mittelrhein (FVM). FVM wanted to offer clubs alternatives to retain their members and elderly players and was a good match for Bayer 04 Leverkusen wanting to promote walking football in its close environment. The collaboration led to many promotion events in grassroots clubs where Bayer 04 Leverkusen acted as an ambassador to show clubs the positive impact of walking football. These events also included post-care, socialisation with locals, and friendly matches on a Bundesliga match day including a stadium visit.
After more information on the international competitions to hosted in Breda, Newcastle, Leverkusen and Gelsenkirchen, the order of the tournament, the competition mode and point system, the rules for walking football of the previous league were presented. The rules have already been tested within previous competitions organised by Schalke 04 and Bayer 04 Leverkusen and are applicable. The rules are based on the roles of original football but there are some reasonable changes to slow down the speed of the game, such as a different playing time, sliding and tacklings being forbidden or rolling substitution. Despite some rule differences between the UK and the rest of Europe, UK teams did not experience any problems playing under different rules playing the game based on the rules created by the Walking Football League. The rules will also be checked by the German Football Federation (DFB) to get some feedback and approval.
Marcel Neuer from FC Schalke who works in Germany training referees for the DFB and supports referees at the German national team as well will be the main responsible for training referees of all partners since the rules should consistently be executed by the referees and each club needs to use the same rules. The goal is to have two referees for each game in the Walking Football League- one on the pitch to control the game and one to act like a line referee to control the running and walking and the height of the ball during the match. The training concept has three stages leading up to the day of the torunaments.
Afterwards, project partners discussed the communication and dissemination, monitoring & evaluation, finance and the next steps of the project which include the next webinar to be held in May or June.
Find more information about the project aims and objectives here.
