It was back to the classroom for FC Bayern Women as they visited a local girls’ school on Thursday morning as part of their winter training camp in Doha. Women’s sporting director Bianca Rech, FC Bayern director of media and communications Stefan Mennerich, and players Ivana Rudelic and Cecilía Rán Rúnarsdóttir received a warm welcome at the Amna Bint Wahab Preparatory School and the professional footballers answered numerous questions from the pupils. In the evening, there was also a training session.
FC Bayern’s Equality Programme
As they were in 2018, 2019 and 2020, FC Bayern Women are committed to women's sport and equality on the ground. Together with the Qatar Women's Sport Committee, FC Bayern has been organising an Equality Programme since 2018. The main aim is to get Qatari girls and teenagers excited about women's sport and to explain to them that sport supports them in developing a strong voice that can also be heard in society.
“In the end, they all wanted to start playing football”
Icelandic goalkeeper Rúnarsdóttir was thrilled with the morning school visit: “The girls were fantastic and very warm. The whole school, the teachers and the students were very open - everything was like with us back home. The Qatari girls were very interested in us and our profession,” said the 19-year-old. “They asked us a lot of questions. How do you become a professional footballer and what is life like as a player at Bayern Munich? In the end, it felt like they all wanted to start playing football. Ivana and I encouraged them and told them to follow their dream and maybe one day we'll see each other again on a football pitch somewhere in the world.”
In addition to the school visit, a football training session was also held with girls from Doha. Head coach Alexander Straus led this together with his coaching team and players Maximiliane Rall, Saki Kumagai, Linda Dallmann and Glódís Perla Viggósdóttir.
“A very nice and enriching experience”
“It's nice to see how much the girls enjoy playing football. They were really happy to train with us and we had a lot of fun too,” said Rall after the session. Rech added about the school visit and the training: “We want to show what’s possible for women in sport and want to trigger motivation and emotion. We’ve certainly succeeded in doing that. We met many young girls and women today who had a lot of fun with our players and playing football. Our players also agreed afterwards that it was a very nice and enriching experience to come into such close contact and exchange.”
An interview with new signing Tuva Hansen: