EFDN Highlights – July, August & September

EFDN Highlights – July, August & September

As 2023 comes to an end, EFDN invites you to look back on this year’s remarkable activities, projects and news stories. Again, 2023 has been a truly inspiring and succesful year in which we could welcome a lot of our members at our conferences and the tournaments. We take pride in having showcased the social impact of football once again over the past year, through a variety of projects and initiatives. We are ready to make football matter again in 2024! But before we look ahead, let’s have a look at some highlights from July, August and September 2023.

Launching of the ‘Member of the Month’ initiative!

We are excited to introduce to you the Member of the Month. This initiative, kicked-off in July, aims to showcase the outstanding efforts of our member clubs, leagues or FA’s honouring their dedication to using football for positive change in their communities. Each month, we will select a deserving member organisation based on its leadership, innovation, and impact on social responsibility. The chosen member gains exclusive visibility across our network and beyond, allowing their inspiring work to be recognised and celebrated.

So far, the nominated club were Real Sociedad Fundazioa, AC Sparta Praha Foundation, Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, Motherwell FC Community Trust, Stabæk Fotball & OFI Crete FC!

7th Football Works Festival in Veenhuizen

Thursday the 14th of September, the 7th edition of the international football tournament ‘Football Works’ took place. Together with the Penitentiary Institution (PI) Veenhuizen and ‘Work Through Sport’ of Ex-Made DJI we organised a day full of fun activities combined with the interesting stories of four different speakers throughout the day. Football Works is a tournament for football clubs and prisons from all over Europe that are active in the employment guidance of ex-prisoners through sport. 

Within this edition, 14 teams, including several prisons from the Netherlands participated. There were also teams from abroad that are part of the European Erasmus+ project: Bohemians FC (Dublin, Ireland), Bayer 04 Leverkusen (Leverkusen, Germany), Valerenga Fotball (Oslo, Norway), London United (London, United Kingdom) and Serbian prison Sremska Mitrovica. And of course the former pros with ‘a scratch’ from FC De Rebellen also participated.

Click here for more info about the Football Works project!

We welcomed new members to the Network!

EFDN is delighted to announce a bunch of new members. During this period we started a collaboration with SK Slavia Praha, GNK Dinamo’s Foundation Nema Predaje & Liechtensteiner Fussballverband (LFV),

Changes in the EFDN Board

EFDN is happy to announce the appointment of Inna Khmyzova as its newest board member. With an illustrious career spanning 18 years at FC Shakhtar Donetsk, Inna brings a wealth of experience and expertise in various facets of FSR in football management to EFDN.

Later this year, we announced the resignation of Peter Davidson from the Board of EFDN. Once again we would like to thank Peter for his contribution to the board past years. Peter supported the development and growth of the organisation but also assisted where appropriate, in the planning and execution of several ‘More than Football’ conferences.

However, we were happy to announce the appointment of Brian McLaughlin, Chief Executive of Morton in the Community (MitC), as our newest board member. Throughout the development of MitC, partnership working has been crucial to the success of their programmes. He has fostered strong working relationships within the private, public and third sector and identified gaps within local services that MitC have successfully fulfilled.