The team behind Festival of Media is launching the Festival of Women’s Football Awards to celebrate and amplify women’s footballers from grassroots to professional level across the UK.
The new project aims to encourage systemic change and greater investment in the women’s game.
For the past 18 months the team behind the project have been talking to the women’s football sector to create a programme for the industry curated by the industry. It’s been an amazing journey and the team has been speaking to clubs from grassroots to professional levels, women’s football experts, the FA, the Women’s Professional Football League and the key journalists and commentators in the space.
Having helped set up the girl’s division at London Lions five years ago the founder of the programme and CEO of Festival of Media – Jeremy King – has been coaching and managing young female footballers during this time and has been privy to both the lows and the highs of the women’s game and the struggles facing young girls trying to make it in the game, or achieve parity with the male players. Equally he has also seen the positive impact playing the sport can have on girls.
From the logo – inspired by the London Lions U12s girls team and brought to life by an adult grassroots player who is also a designer – to the categories everything has been curated by the industry.
After a number of workshops with the award programme’s Changemakers Board the team has created three pots of categories. The first is Grassroots and this aims to amplify and celebrate the best people and organisation within the grassroots sector across junior and adults age groups. The second is Off the Pitch, whose categories have been devised to make heroes out the work being produced by the likes of the marketing, commercial and content teams behind the scenes who are helping drive amplification of the women’s football sector and their clubs. The final group of categories is On the Pitch, which will celebrate the women’s stand out professional players based on their performances this season (24/25).
Women’s sport and in particular football have been cited as one of the key opportunities for brands in 2025 and this project is the ideal vehicle for any brands looking to resonate and connect with a big spending audience that includes females, children, families and the LGBTQ+ community.
For more details drop team a line at Jeremy.king@festivalofmedia.com or ginelle.polini-timineri@festivalofmedia.com
