New member: Eintracht Frankfurt
The European Football for Development Network is proud to announce German club Eintracht Frankfurt as a new member. The multi-sport club is joining EFDN to learn from other clubs, to be a part of the Walking Football League, and to be part of a greater network. It wants to give back to the network by exchanging with other stakeholders and sharing best practices, experiences, and expertise on ESG topics.
The sports club Eintracht Frankfurt, mostly known for its football team, was one of the founding members of the Bundesliga and was once crowned as champions of Germany while they won five times the DFB Pokal, the last one in 2018. In 1980 they added the UEFA Cup to their trophy room.
Founded in 1899, Eintracht Frankfurt lives the values of diversity, tolerance, and integrity on and off the pitch. As one of Germany’s largest sports clubs with more than 98,000 members, Eintracht Frankfurt has always been aware of its enormous social responsibility. The club wants to improve on all three ESG dimensions of sustainability: environment, social, and governance. Numerous projects in the respective areas have already been implemented. Like the change of the vehicle fleet to electric mobility, the usage of green electricity, or the cooperation with the caterer in order to ensure that high-quality food is produced seasonally and regionally – to name just a few. With these initiatives, CO2 emissions can be sustainably reduced along the value chain.
Furthermore, the club supports and initiates several social projects such as the “Auf Jetzt!” campaign to strengthen the sense of community and to support people and institutions in need – especially in times of the corona pandemic. Eintracht Frankfurt is firmly opposed to all forms of discrimination, racism, and homophobia and promotes diversity and tolerance with various initiatives such as “No place for racism!”.
In order to emphasize Eintracht Frankfurt’s important and impactful projects, find a more detailed description of two of them below:
Eintracht Frankfurt Pausenliga is a school sports project conducted at fourteen local schools, among one school for hearing impaired and one school for mentally handicapped children. Once a week the gym or schoolyard is turned into a stadium where three- and four-graders compete in several exciting games. The children are throughout supervised by certified trainers which put most effort in the kids being excited, having fun as well as promoting their sense of community and teaching them it is all about fair play.
Since 2019, Eintracht Frankfurt has been offering “Walking Football” free of charge to all members over the age of 55. Football while walking – what sounds like a contradiction at first, has established itself in recent years as a new and special way to play football. The risk of injury is significantly lower due to fixed rules and the joints are spared, but the entire body is still brought into motion. Eintracht Frankfurt is one of the founding members of the Walking Football League.
Hubert Rovers, CEO of EFDN: “It’s a great pleasure to welcome such a big name in German football to our network. Eintracht Frankfurt is a multi-sport club which makes them more than a sports club but also in its reach of social engagement. They deliver great and interesting projects and we are happy to be able to benefit from each other’s knowledge.”
