Real Betis Balompié, partner of the project, hosted the meeting, aimed to discuss the status of the work in progress of the first 6 months from the start of the project and to plan future actions together with the other partner organizations and federations: the football federations of Portugal, Romania and Kosovo, and ESSMA (the European Stadium & Safety Management Association). The SuM Lab of the Institute of Management of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna coordinated the work as project leader.
The project, funded by the European Commission through the Erasmus + Sport Program, aims to improve the environmental impact of football organizations, focusing on female and youth grassroots football teams.
The following issues were at the center of the agenda:
- the measurement of the direct and indirect environmental impacts of sports organizations, through the development of an online platform for calculating the environmental footprint of football clubs, stadiums and matches;
- the analysis of the environmental governance of football federations;
- the presentation of the environmental awareness campaign;
- the presentation of the communication and dissemination plan of the project results
- administrative aspects.
In addition, the afternoon session hosted the first meeting of the Replicability Management Board, an external working group set up to support the project’s replicability process in other football federations and clubs. The members of GOALS’ RMB are the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), the Irish Federation (FAI), the Norwegian Federation (NFF) and UEFA.