Female leaders in football mean business (and impact)
How authentic personal brand purpose unlocks opportunities and creates change
If you live anywhere that is not under a rock, you know that between the excitement of a multiple record-breaking Women's World Cup and the worldwide Barbie movie fever, women have been in the spotlight these days.
Sadly for me, yesterday the women of ‘seleção’ were in that spotlight for being crashed out of the World Cup before the knockout stage. Yet, this unfortunate turn of events turned out to agree with the content I was preparing for this edition of The Good Football: the relevance of female leadership in football.
As the young and promising Brazilian team fell in the group stage, we witnessed Marta Silva rise as a leader not only to face the defeat but to encourage the new generation of players and advocate for the continued growth of women's football in Brazil. That was not the first time we have seen the GOAT step into this role and act like the greatest off the pitch as well.
It doesn't come as a surprise, since in athlete leadership, activism, and engagement in social causes, women tend to be protagonists.
In football, it is much more frequent to see female players step up, speak up, and take action towards different social and environmental causes. Women's football, as its audience, is progressive in its nature. This quote by Dr. Molly Yanity helps us understand why:
“Female athletes don’t know anything else (other) than to fight. You gotta fight just to be on the field, for uniforms, locker rooms, health care, pay. And they see things in their world that they also want to be better, and they’ve been conditioned and bred to fight in this arena of sports, and they just keep doing it.”
Considering this context, the challenges and the opportunities it brings, I give you a list of four reasons why female football players should develop a personal brand purpose strategy.
1. To amplify their voices
By following a solid purpose strategy and using implementing it through social media and other owned platforms, they can hack the traditional media system and make their voices heard despite the common lack of space reserved for them.
2. To leverage their differentials
If women's football is carving a reputation of being disruptive and challenging the status quo, the players can embrace these aspects that make their game unique and use them as a way to stand out and position themselves as leaders. Common Goal's campaigns created in partnership with the USA women's team and a group of 44 players from different countries are great cases to exemplify this concept. They used the Women's World Cup platform to bring awareness to different causes, consequently making a statement about who they are as persons and athletes.
3. To strengthen and stretch their personal brand
When athletes engage in a cause aligned with their values and personal story and use their platform to generate positive impact, they are developing another aspect of their branding. On top of their origin, personality, performance and other variables that directly influence their market value and sponsorship opportunities, a genuine personal brand purpose can also open doors to new audiences, deals, media coverage, brand association and more. This means that their brand can become stronger and more flexible to reach new markets. Like when Marta became an ambassador for a cosmetic brand and wore lipstick in a clever campaign design to sell and make a statement against sexism. To go deeper into this topic, read what I wrote about Marcus Rashford's brand strength in 2020.
4. To generate real change
Last but most importantly, football players are lucky enough to be in a position where they can actually make a difference, being through their own resources or visibility. By identifying a personal purpose and intentionally working towards fulfilling it, they can do that in a way that will generate change and inspire more people to do the same.
THE GOOD LINKS
🥰 This exchange between Brazil's Marta and Jamaica's Shaw after the game that marked the last participation of the Queen of Football in World Cups and the first Caribbean nation to reach round 16 in the competition.
📏 The FA's new series of measures to improve player and staff behaviour in football.
👆 All these ‘firsts’ accomplished in the Women's World Cup so far.
🥺 This perfect speech given by Marta before her last World Cup game (can you tell I'm emotional about it?)
🇲🇦 This historical moment in Morocco's football.