Participants receive certificates from CAF instructors
A training workshop was held by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and the North Africa Football Associations (UNAF) from 25 to 27 November.
Day one tackled the growth and evolution of women’s football in Africa by CAF’s head of women’s football Meskerem Goshime, an overview of women’s football globally and women’s football in the region, and a look at regional challenges, achievements and plans.
Following a break, CAF instructors Thuba and Rasha talked about leadership of self, the importance of knowing and understanding yourself, and leading others — the importance of knowing and understanding others, followed by leadership scenarios.
Day two was a spotlight on the Member Associations (MA) in which each MA representative delivered a presentation on their associations. The Egyptian FA topic was “leveraging on strategic planning plus FIFA support to harness holistic women’s football development objectives — lessons from the Egyptian MA”.
Algerian MA followed with utilising competitions to achieve growth and progress in women’s football — lessons from Algeria’s women’s league structure. Tunisia focused on the progress made in women’s football development and aspirations and women’s football programmes, while Libya delivered their women’s football story.
Morocco delivered their ingredients of success, spotlighting Morocco’s women’s football, youth football, national teams and senior competitions and how to drive interest and development in women’s football alongside men’s football.
CAF instructors then delivered case studies: building winning clubs (“what it takes to see our clubs succeed at the international level”), giving an example of three clubs: FC Masar of Egypt, Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa and ASFAR of Morocco. The session continued with topics on women’s football development framework, strategic planning, the importance of competitions, and promotion through participation and leveraging on competitions to build a strong and resilient women’s football brand.
There was also focus on the UNAF women’s football brand on what should a visible, empowering and sustainable women’s football brand look and feel like. “How can we leverage our strengths as a zone to build a strong women’s football brand?” (tone of voice, image, sustainability).
The last day of the workshop delved into setting the intention and mapping a way forward for women’s football through strategic planning, where to go in terms of goals and key actions, framing the findings, a conclusion on key actions for the zone going forward based on findings, and turning words into action.
The workshop concluded with what’s next for the UNAF Zone and what support is needed to be accountable for goals as a zone and key actions for the zone going forward.
After the workshop came the UNAF Women’s Football Competition launched from 26 November to 2 December which saw the participation of Under-20 national teams Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Jordan.
Egypt and Morocco are scheduled to meet in the final on Tuesday.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 December, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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