Tending the grassroots for all

Are we fulfilling our obligations to parents and to society? Are we working on shaping human beings to become good citizens – some of whom can become good footballers? Or are we being impatient and focusing on nurturing stars at the expense of the 'number two'? These were some of the questions thrown with trademark passion by UEFA's Grassroots Ambassador, Per Ravn Omdal, at the audience in Oslo on the opening day of the 10th UEFA Grassroots Workshop.

For Omdal, the 'number two' is the huge chunk of the footballing family who play the game at grassroots level. "From time to time," he recommended, "we should look again at the footballing pyramid and pay attention to the broad base, where people play the game for fun in their spare time. Are we ignoring the needs of 90% of our players?"

The idea of returning to the core elements of grassroots football was echoed by Italian great Gianni Rivera, who was in Oslo as a member of UEFA's grassroots panel and presented the 2013 UEFA Grassroots Day Awards on the opening morning of the three-day event. "In Italy," he said, "only one in 30,000 or 35,000 reaches Serie A and the national association's basic responsibility is to provide opportunities for kids to play football."

He described himself as "fortunate to grow up in the post-war era when people had nothing. We were self-organised and self-taught with a team spirit created in an ambience of adversity." The central theme of the workshop in Oslo was how to recreate those basic values and how Europe's member national associations can nurture grassroots football together in today's much-changed society. Yngve Hallén, president of the Football Association of Norway (NFF), who hosted the event, stressed: "We have to look into the future together and concentrate on creating meaningful lifestyles and contributing to communities."

Former Liverpool FC defender Stig Inge Bjørnebye recalled that when he took over as the NFF's head of football development, he asked himself basic questions about why he wanted to play football and make it his life. "I concluded that it was all about enjoyment," he told the audience in the Norwegian capital, "so I think one of the key elements of grassroots football is to stimulate the desire for activity and to make sure that everybody looks forward to the next session or the next season."

The programme for the workshop demonstrated that there are various ways of achieving this – among them attracting boys and girls into the game by pegging grassroots activities to major footballing events. Piet Hubers offered an overview of the events (or "flagship moments" as he called them) which the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) is attaching to May's UEFA Europa League final in Amsterdam, while Orit Raz, grassroots director of the Israel Football Association (IFA), reviewed campaigns linked to the UEFA European Under-21 Championship, which kicks off three weeks later.

Peter Landström outlined the range of kindergarten events, training camps, club visits and football festivals which the Swedish Football Association (SvFF) is pinning to UEFA Women's EURO 2013. And Alf Hansen revealed how the Norwegian Cup final is an annual cue to organise seminars for grassroots coaches and leaders.

"It's important to use events to gather the football family," UEFA's chief technical officer Ioan Lupescu had said when he opened the workshop. "We have all 53 member associations here in Oslo and the theme is working together on new ideas and visions to nurture the grassroots." As Per Ravn Omdal stressed: "We have the best product in the world and now we must refine our grassroots strategies and adapt them to future needs."