Female legends share secrets of post-playing successes

A host of high-profile names from women’s football have met to discuss the game’s development and the role of the UEFA MIP Alumni in helping players to forge new careers once they have hung up their boots.

The conference, which featured Nadine Kessler, Tatjana Haenni and Kelly Simmons, who are currently working at UEFA, the Swiss Football Association and The Football Association respectively, focused on how women in leadership positions can help to further accelerate development in the women’s game.

Issues, such as accessing the biggest challenges over the next five years for women’s football and how the game is managing to navigate the disruption caused by the COVID pandemic, were also discussed.

The conference, was the brainchild of the UEFA Executive Master for International Players (MIP) Alumni, which is becoming an ever-growing band of former footballing greats, such as former FIFA World Cup winners Youri Djorkaeff and Annike Krahn.

However, just as importantly, the UEFA MIP programme offers a pathway for former internationals to pursue a post-playing career in football administration as former Germany international and MIP graduate Bianca Rech explained.

“With each edition that passes, the UEFA MIP alumni continues to grow and we have an excellent chance to play an active role and change the future of football,” said Rech. “It is important that women realise that there are opportunities out there to directly influence how football is run and the UEFA MIP programme gives them the tools to achieve exactly this.”

Rech is currently enjoying a second career as the sporting director of Bayern München's women's football team, where she has helped the Bavarian side become one of the top sides in Europe. However, she admits that it took her time to adapt to a life after football.

Needing to adapt

“The biggest difference is as a player on the football pitch, you are well known and people give you the red-carpet treatment,” she explained. “This stops when you finish your career and you have to find the right place for yourself. You have to find out what your passion is outside of football, what interests you most and you also have to deal with not receiving the same amount of attention from people within the football industry and fans.”

Bianca Rech is currently enjoying a second career as the sporting director of Bayern München's women's football teamUEFA via Getty Images

Rech also praised the UEFA MIP programme for its ‘hands-on’ learning experience, which gave her the opportunity to use her existing skills from her playing days, in order to transition into a second career.

“As a top-level athlete, you already have a number of excellent qualities that can be transferred into working in the field of business. We have the capacity to lead, to communicate, to accept defeat and to be flexible. The ‘hands-on’ education provided by the UEFA MIP programme, helped me to get a better picture of the daily work in different football fields and was very different to my experience with a class in a university. The opportunity to meet and exchange views with so many people, while also building up an amazing network of contacts, was crucial.”

One of the speakers at the conference, Nadine Kessler, is making her own mark as UEFA’s chief of women’s football. She shared her own thoughts on how to successfully start a profession after retirement, as well as the difficulties she faced after hanging up her boots.

Try new things

“I probably ended up in the worst way you could end up. I had just won the best player in the world award, but immediately after this, my knee problems became worse and worse and I had to stop one year after, with 11 knee surgeries in total,” she explained.

During her playing career, Kessler won the UEFA Women's EURO in 2013 and was named FIFA Women's World Player of the Year, a year laterAFP/Getty Images

“I had to reorientate myself and find a new pathway – a new world. Everything was new. How can you know what you are good at? How can you know what you would like to do if you have spent 15 years in that structure – where everything and every single day is set – like in the football world?”

For Kessler, it was important to find a second career, which would give her as much enjoyment as playing on the pitch.

“The biggest privilege in life and that any footballer or sportsperson has is to have an actual job that is fun. It became clear quickly that I would need something that provided me with fun, but also the challenge – the competition. I tested many things. I did a lot of commentating, I did a lot of social projects, I continued my master’s degree, I started coaching, I worked for the German Football Association.

Nadine Kessler is heading up women's football at UEFA UEFA via Getty Images

"The first thing for me was to learn the environment and understand the people around me, while also getting to know what the administrative world of football is all about. My job is now to lead the women’s football department at UEFA. This includes all women’s competitions – the UEFA Women’s EURO, the UEFA Women’s Champions League and youth competitions."

Transferable skills

However, Kessler was quick to point out that footballers already possess a number of important qualities that can help them in looking to find a pathway once their playing careers end.

“The mental strength you learn as an athlete is absolutely transferable to your new job. If you are a great leader on the pitch, you can absolutely be a great leader off the pitch. That is basically the ultimate goal – to get the girls excited and then get them associated with a club or a federation. You have to develop a lot of things from scratch as they are not yet in place, as is the case with men’s football. You have to be proactive; you have to be passionate about what you are doing."