Why there are still so few women in leadership positions in football

Clubs like Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt and Werder Bremen have long recognized the value of women’s football. However, they find it difficult to get women into leadership positions.

Today, Bianca Rech can rightly say that she enjoys her job. As Director of Women’s Football at FC Bayern, the former national player has had decision-making powers since July 1, 2023, which were not a given for a long time.

Although FC Bayern has shared all national titles with VfL Wolfsburg for a decade, women are still rare at management level. The board and supervisory board of the record champions are made up entirely of men. Rech is one of the six women who can at least shape things at the level below.

Alpha animals in a man’s world at FC Bayern

“I had to run into a lot of walls before I could tear them down – and I also had to listen to a lot of jokes.” Fortunately, you are a type of person who tackles things even more when faced with resistance – and also “Concrete walls” about how they are on the Summit “Women in Football” on the campus of the German Football Association (DFB).

“People in the club have finally understood, including the white men within the club, that they need women’s football to appeal to other target groups.”the 43-year-olds shouted to the 150 participants.

In particular, the powerful honorary president Uli Hoeneß needed a long time to realize that the women’s department creates added value. Alpha animals like Hoeneß or the long-standing CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge are socialized in a purely male world of football.

It takes a wide arc and a lot of energy

As a player at FC Bayern between 2006 and 2010, Rech experienced first-hand how the women based in Aschheim had to live a wallflower existence for a long time. The head of department was not able to make a career at all internally. “My predecessor (Katrin Danner, editor’s note.) has fought for this position for many years”said Rech.

You have “broad elbows and lots of energy” We have to work hard to finally be able to sit at the table with other decision-makers. “It also gives us a lot more opportunities to move things. That makes a big difference.”

The FCB women have won the German championship twice in a row. Without them, the town hall balcony on Marienplatz would have remained unused this year. President Herbert Hainer today stresses at every opportunity what important roles women play for his club. It is astonishing that even licensed clubs with the best teams in the women’s Bundesliga have hardly any women in management positions.

Yet another path at Eintracht Frankfurt

Eintracht Frankfurt, of all clubs, is an inglorious example of this. A club that is committed to diversity out of conviction, that wants to advance women’s football at all levels, but in top management under the Adler roof, men alone have the say. Board spokesman Axel Hellmann admitted on Wednesday (18.9.2024) that it is still a “further away” until women join the executive board or supervisory board.

Diversity is actually a basic principle, but the 2022 Europa League winners must improve in this area. In his view, the more than 140,000 members are primarily required to do so: “I have addressed the issue several times. We cannot dictate this from above. It has to come from the membership.”

Ultimately, the involvement of women is important for a club like Eintracht, which is ambitious in both men’s and women’s football, in order to achieve performance: “We want the best minds and people – and that’s not just men. If you don’t do that, you won’t be able to deliver top performance.” It is outdated to conduct acquisition from a purely male world.

At Eintracht, “sporting competence should diffuse”

For the 53-year-old, not everyone had to know the history of Eintracht since 1959 to take a job at the Hessian Bundesliga club. Women had interns in the office “a right of way sign” Since the summer, for example, former management consultant Christine Thoma has been in charge of implementing the strategy process.

The HR manager is supposed to ensure better parity. The Eintracht boss: “We are not yet on a model path. We have only done what was already done in the economy 15 years ago.” The merger four years ago with 1. FFC Frankfurt was also carried out so that women’s football “sporting competence diffuses”.

Hellmann can imagine that at some point a woman will also train the male professionals. “We have to learn to join forces. There will be greater permeability, right up to the appointment of head coaches.” However, even the Eintracht women have been coached for many years by Niko Arnautis, who gambled away an important goal of the season when the Bundesliga third-place team failed to qualify for the Champions League.

Werder Bremen does not make any international demands for its women or men, but social responsibility is no longer negotiable on the Weser. The Green-Whites are further ahead than other clubs because they have decided to fill at least 25 percent of management positions with women by 2026.

A year and a half ago, Anne-Kathrin Laufmann joined the four-person management team as Managing Director of Sport & Sustainability. She also spoke very vividly at the DFB event about the hurdles she had to overcome.

Werder Bremen has a woman in the Management

She started as an intern in 2006, she managed various projects in fan and member support, and was given more responsibility in the CSR department. The step to the top management level also triggered an inner conflict, she revealed, especially since as a mother of two she sometimes has to set other priorities.

“At first I was scared”she admitted frankly. But then she said to herself: “I’ll try this now.” In the past, she often swore in the first meetings, but today the 45-year-old naturally gets involved because she says of herself as a representative of women in leadership positions: “We bring in more empathy, a social and human perspective.”