Many players at the international level still cannot dedicate themselves to football full time. Today, a large proportion still combine high-level competitive sport with studies or an additional job that allows them to obtain sufficient income. A reality that the women’s FC Zurich has given visibility to in a recent marketing action.
Together with the agencies Serviceplan Switzerland, Serviceplan Hamburg and Serviceplan Cultura, the team has launched the “Make Football My Only Job” campaign. With it, the club makes a forceful statement in favor of the future of women’s football, which although it has gained popularity in Switzerland in recent years, can still improve its structural conditions so that the players are fully professional.
The demand has materialized on the players’ own shirts. And their sponsors have given up their spaces on the kits to accommodate messages that reflect the reality of many soccer players who still depend on additional jobs to maintain their careers. Thus, instead of the logos of Axa, Easy Cosmetics, MG, Castore or Fairdruck, the t-shirts have featured labels “Night shift”, “Overtime”, “Side job” and “Endless work”, designed to look like real sponsors,
The players wore the special jerseys during the match played last Wednesday, March 18, against FC Luzern. On the front you could see the website “MakeFootballMyOnlyJob.com”, created for the initiative and in which more brands that are not yet present in women’s sports are invited to join as sponsors of the club. Thus, sponsorship is presented as a marketing opportunity, but also as a way to contribute to the professionalization of football.
In doing so, the campaign uses the usual visual language of sports sponsorship to highlight a structural problem in women’s football: the lack of financial support at a professional level. It also communicates with an audiovisual piece starring some of the club’s players, recreating their usual jobs. For example, it is reported that Naomi Megroz, in addition to being the captain of the team, also works as an administrator.
“Almost no professional soccer player can make a living from the sport. What female players earn per month from soccer, male players earn in about 5 minutes. Therefore, the majority of women depend on work outside the field” commented Jakob Eckstein, Creative Director at Serviceplan Hamburg, via LinkedIn. “What at first glance looked like sponsor logos were, on closer inspection, what actually funds women’s football in Switzerland: fictitious “brands” that describe the daily lives of female footballers who still work shifts after training“.
More info.: Make Football My Only Job
