"The Future of Women's football in Belize begins with clarity, purpose and ambition." This is the concept behind the creation of FFB's Women's strategic Plan that was launched today, through a partnership with FIFA. They have set goals for the next 4 years on what they hope to achieve in advancing women's football in Belize. Jomarie Lanza was at the event:
Women and Girls' Football has transformed over time in Belize to benefit both the athlete and those in pursuit of making history in the sport. There's a significant amount of untapped potential, and over a 4 year period, with the help of FIFA and other stakeholders, the Football Federation Of Belize hopes to achieve this through the development of a strategic plan implemented by FIFA.
Lorena Soto, FIFA Women's Development Consultant
"The global strategy, we have pillars that are very well defined in essence we want to grow the game everywhere around the world we want to make it accessible for every girl and woman around the world that is exactly what we showed today in the strategy for the next 5 years."
"We have today, FIFA has 13 programs that are specifically for the women's football development process and there are others for Belize, and for the all the other 211 member associations around the world, Belize already has started with the first program which is the women's football strategy and this is the first step and what unlocks everything else because when you have a strategy and you have a plan in place then you can access all the other programs and it will be towards that strategy so right now we have 13 programs and the support of FIFA is always out there in any other area that they need."
The plan seeks to increase participation in women's football by finding ways to support and contribute to the growth of the sport. These athletes need more than just training, but also the support and resources to help them continue playing for a National team.
Phillip Marin, Technical Director, FFB
"Our vision from Women's and girls football development is for us to establish a national and international program that will be recognized and be inclusive for all women and girls in Football. Today we are launching our 4 year strategic plan but before we had 3 consultations, our first consultations was with our management team and our second was with our senior women's national team and our third was with our congress members and stakeholders of football. This strategic plan focuses on 5 pillars. The first pillar is to develop and grow, that focuses on grass roots football and youth football. The second pillar is to showcase the game focus on the league to see how we can strengthen our league and also our national teams. The third pillar is empower and educate capacity building for our coaches, referees, administrators, for managers, the fourth pillar is promotion and visibility we want to see how we can promote more women's and girls football and see how we can find additional funding for them. And our fifth pillar is infrastructure and resources to see how we could have adequate pitches for female football and to see how we can have more resources when it comes to female football."
The FFB President says while he recognizes the value of these large partnerships with stakeholders like FIFA, the public also has a role to play: Promoting the sport and championing the achievements made with every game, each tournament, both local and international.
Sergio Chuc, President of the Football Federation of Belize
"Definitely people want to see a win but in order to get a win you have to have the proper structure in place and so our emphasis has been mostly in youth development and there is where you could see the improvements we are doing and we are getting better and better results at the youth level and hopefully that will transforming into the senior team very very soon, but the investment has been huge in participating in U16- female competition in U16 male competition. Right now we are getting ready for January we have the U20 or U19, male competition for the World Cup qualifiers we will have U17 male competition for World Cup qualifiers so these are huge investments that the federation is making and as I said we need the partnership out there and like I said the more you guys broadcast it and expose it, I think the better for us. I think so far we have a good partnership with TNC who broadcast our games live and more and more people are looking at it. This weekend we have the finals of the PLB and I am sure tens of thousands of Belizeans will be glued to their tv looking at that finals and as this happens it encourages the business to partner with us."
You can find a copy of the 2026 - 2029 strategic plan online at FootballFederationBelize.com.
