From Influence to Impact: Football's Power to Shape a More Sustainable, Healthy and Inclusive World – 81st Session of the UN General Assembly

All right, good morning again, SDG Media Zone. Great to have you all here in person with us and all those of you watching around the world. A good afternoon and good evening to you all again. We're gonna go from health systems to football and y'all wonder why football, but it's football and the sustainable development goals. And we're going to talk about influence to impact, football's power to shape a more sustainable, healthy, and inclusive world. I think it's fair to say, and probably everyone here knows it, that football is the world's most popular sport and also the most accessible. The reach is not in doubt. The question this session puts on the table is what football does with it. The panel's title says it plainly, influence the impact. And no institution delivers the SDGs on its own. We know football can't do it. It's on its own, but it's part of that ecosystem that is the UN, the government, civil society, and football can play a huge role. I'm going to talk briefly about Football for the Goals. Football for the Goals is a UN initiative. We launched it in 2022 in the Department of Global Communications, the team that's with you here all week. And it gives the global football community a platform to engage with, advocate for, and act on the SDGs. Members commit to sustainability policies and practices, implementing, that's key, implementing and advocating for the SDGs. We now have about 480 organizations from 124 countries as members of Football for the Goals. And that's the six major regional confederations that govern football down to grassroots organizations, and then, you know, leagues, clubs, associations, everything in between. So now I'd like to intro our amazing group of conversationalists here. Part of that is that we've, of Football for the Goals, is we've established the champions, and Eni Aluko is one of those champions. We're really proud to have her in the group of Football for the Goals champions. Former member of the English national team, so as a former Lioness, she has one of the most powerful voices in the game on equality for women in football. Also joining us from one of the most popular clubs in the world, maybe the most popular, at least I talked to my colleague Carlos Islam over there, from Liverpool FC, Lucas Leiva, former Brazilian international and Liverpool FC legend. Spent a decade with Liverpool and a career that also took him to Italy and then back to Brazil, his home country. And Rishi Jain. impact director at Liverpool Football Club who leads the club social and environmental impact work and we think that's great to have a club that actually has someone leading impact for the team. And then now I would like to hand it over to the moderator. Really I'm really happy personally, and I'll tell you why in a second, to have Shaka Hislop, a former Premier League player and Trinidad and Tobago international player, who I got to see regularly when I was living in Trinidad and Tobago in 2005 as Trinidad and Tobago qualified at that time as the smallest nation ever to qualify for the World Cup. And he's now a senior analyst at ESPN. Shaka, over to you.

Thank you very much, Rob. Thank you. Lady, gents, that's as good as we're getting as a warm-up and a stretch. I'm jumping straight into it and, and Annie, I'm coming straight to you. You often talk about the importance of, of women having not just a place in football, but a seat at head tables, making decisions, driving impact within the game and outside of it. Um, what does that look like, uh, in terms of getting women's involvement at that level and how does that impact wider society and gender equality?

Yeah, so I think for a long time, women's football has had to also be a gender equality movement, right? So it's what happens on the pitch. Obviously, it's the investment in resources, the investment in female players, making sure that salaries are good, making sure that you know, minimum salaries are good, but then that has an impact in the wider society in terms of women and young girls. I think obviously men's football for a long time, women have not really been participants at the highest level in boards, you know, off the pitch coaching. So women's football really has an opportunity to shift economic empowerment for women within the sport. And what that looks like, I think, is as the growth of the game happens, opportunities and doors open off the pitch, commercially, behind the cameras, production, broadcasting, coaching. And with that comes increased salaries, investment, I'm part of an investment group called Mercury 13. We own three women's football teams, and a big part of that investment is how do you invest in the resources to create professional clubs around the world for women, which then obviously means investment in the operations, in the salaries, et cetera. One of the things I'm really excited about is the impact on local economies now. So when the World Cup, for example, comes around in Brazil next year, Lucas will be excited about that. it's it's the local economies that then impact female entrepreneurs, local business owners who are who are women, right? And so as women's football has grown globally, it's become a platform for women to be economically empowered to to own more, to to build businesses, to get involved commercially with brands, to to to change their lives in terms of the investment. So it it's been beautiful to see the growth of of of women's football but also So how that's impacted women and their economic empowerment in general?

Excellent. And Lucas, let me build on that. Given the fact Brazil hosted the World Cup in 2014, the men's World Cup in 2014, and now looking forward to hosting the women's World Cup, what impacts did Brazil recognize in 2014 and are hoping to mirror for the women in 2027?

We were talking a little bit about how excited the country is to host the World Cup, Women's World Cup. I'm really excited because in 2014, my city where I live only hosted a couple of games. And I think my whole city now, my city now will host about six or seven. So we can see, of course, it's a long way to go, of course, but we've seen progress in terms of how women's are challenging to be equal you know with the men's football and especially in Brazil that is a is a football is so important for the country we've seen some good strides and and we've seen some young women's starting to play so this is really exciting times for women's football and also it will impact the country as well.

Excellent and good luck with that everybody's invited to stay at Lucas's next year for the women's World Cup by the way and Rishi and Well, let me turn to you, given your role with Liverpool Football Club, one of the biggest global brands in the game, at an institutional level, how do Liverpool drive that change? How do we as fans or looking in from the outside, how do you recognize measurable differences that those institutional changes or efforts may make?

Of course. So at Liverpool, we have an overarching sustainability program called the Redway. And the strapline for that, it's our commitment to build a better future for our people, our planet, and our communities. It's everything around diversity inclusion. It's everything around our environmental commitments. And then our communities pillar really encapsulates the incredible work of the LFC Foundation, the club's official charity. What my role is, is to convene that work, bring it all together, the fantastic work of colleagues, hundreds of colleagues across the club and communicate it and bring it to life on stages like today. And hopefully I'll do a good job of that. How that translates into action, because obviously that's a really important thing, is you can have the strapline, you can have the identity, but where is the real substance underneath it? The best part of my job is coming to places like New York, sitting on the stage of colleagues like yourself, but the real work is done at home. Because if we're not actually doing the work, it becomes a very inauthentic and it becomes something that is actually a problem for us to not be doing that. So for example, one of the recent activities that our foundation have just delivered is the You Mean the World programme. So that's a programme with one of our commercial partners where we've gone out to the hundreds of millions of Liverpool supporters across the world and said, How can you deliver social action in your own community? And the 10,000 people in total have joined that course. And that's been like food drives, it's been beach cleanups, it's been litter pickups, it's been community engagement pieces. And that's literally from our foundation using the part of the Liverpool Football Club badge and hopefully spreading good across the world. And obviously in the name of Liverpool Football Club. On the other side, we obviously have our players and our players voices so much more powerful. than anyone's, much more powerful than mine. People want to see their faces, not mine on screen, to be very honest. But one thing that I always think is really important with players and how we work with them is to ask them to speak to the right topics in the right way. What's really, I think where players maybe find it a little bit difficult and clubs maybe have the challenges is when players are asked to support causes that aren't important to them. and then they get caught out or they behave in a different way or they may say the wrong thing and it puts them under a lot of pressure. My job and the job of many colleagues across the club is to give them the platform to talk about what they're passionate about. So for example, we have a women's player, Bjarta Olsen, she's a Swedish international. She came to me a couple of months ago and said, Rishi, I'm doing my master's in sustainable technologies. And I was like, great. I was like, what does that mean? the first question. Then she explained it and then she said, can I come and support you and your team a couple of days a month? And I said, absolutely, I would never say no to that. And then she's actually now looking at how she can build her hair portfolio and her brand and understanding for sustainability. So we've worked with someone, given the platform, obviously on the pitch, but also off the pitch as well.

Lucas, well, you, building on that, you played in England, in Italy, in Brazil. How can some of these institutional efforts, how can, can they be relayed or how, um… How do fans continue to drive some of that sustainability off the field as fans who show up in a match day to support your team, but I think supporting the club goes a whole lot further. Given your experiences all over the world. How do fans kind of step up to those challenges that clubs initiate?

I think like Richie said, I think first of all, I think we all have to feel connected, you know, with the cause. And I have to be honest, I never talked much about sustainability since I was, maybe I became a father or I went to Liverpool when I was only 20 years old. So to feel connected with the cause and bring the power of football to communicate and engage with the community. I think that's a great way to start. And it's not only about the clubs, I think it's about the players, about the fans. and I had the chance to play in different countries and it's important to bring that together and using the platform that we have to raise engagement. I think, of course, I'm not an expert, but I have a voice and people want to listen. And that's that's why we are here, you know, try to raise engagement, awareness and the Red Way that Richie said is a fantastic project as well.

I'll echo that. So often we as young people only recognize our responsibility to the next generation when we become parents ourselves and understanding that responsibility to them and to a wider generation, we embrace so many of those causes. And so let me ask you, When have you recognized as a player, as an administrator, somebody involved in the, as a fan, when have you been able to recognize some of that fan engagement, some of that institutional engagement, and how it's impacted the game as you know it, your game, the women's game?

Yeah, I think fan engagement within the women's game is critical. It's what has brought the women's game to the place it is now, where millions of people are watching on TV, you're getting full stadiums now. I remember once upon a time when nobody came to our games. And so it's very nice to see the journey now of fans passionate about, you know, the national team, passionate about the leagues and the clubs in women's football. I think beyond that, it's, you know, I really like the word Lucas used there. It is about the connection because I think there is. there is a disconnect that we see a lot in football you know the the astronomical numbers that are often sort of talked about in the media and people just can't relate and I think the women's game we've done a really good job of relating to people um inspiring the next generation of girls connecting and I think brands now when they're coming coming in commercially even with the some of the big numbers that are coming in now to women's football there is a conversation about let's make sure we're connecting let's make sure it's authentic to the fans let's make sure the fans are on the journey with us um everything down to you know when a brand is creating new kit for um a team the fans will be involved in that um you know women will be involved in that you know that there was uh you know famous campaign around you know getting rid of white shorts because obviously we're women and we we have you know women's issues and periods and things all of that involved fans and women and girls actually having a voice And so that's, I think, a beautiful part of women's football is the opportunity to really connect with people and give them a voice and allow them to feel part of the team that they support.

Let me ask a very personal question here. What's my responsibility as a man, as a former male footballer to the women's game to continue to bridge that gap in power, in representation at every single level so that we can recognize the equality that we all yearn for.

I think it's a great question and I thank you for the question because male allyship is huge. You know, you guys have huge platforms. You're loved and adored by fans. And I think what male allies can do in the women's game is really be a voice, signal and promote Also, I think open doors and create opportunities where you have access and women don't, open that door, right? So whether it's broadcasting, whether it's coaching, the networks that you have access to, some of us don't have access to it. And so opening those doors. And the last one, I want to sort of make an example, use an example of somebody like Alexis Ohanian, who is a huge ally for women's sport. He's invested hundreds of millions of pounds, of dollars into women's football, women's athletics. So you guys, if you want to invest, if you want to become owners, if you want to be active investors and shape the sport, listen, the game is growing because of investment. And there's a lot of men now. I think Giorgio Chiellini is another one. He joined the investment group I'm part of. Obviously, Alexis Ohanian, Juan Mata is another guy that has got involved. Gary Neville, so get involved, guys. Get your wallets out.

We'll have a whip around. I'm going to finish by asking one question of each of you. What can the game do at a club level, at a player level, at a fan level? What is the one thing you'd like to see be done in raising the impacts of this game, whatever those impacts may look like? Rishir, I'm going to put you on the spot and come to you first. The others have a couple of minutes just to think about it. What's that one thing that football clubs, that institutions can do in terms of driving the goals of, the greater goals of the game?

I think for me, it's a, it feels like a very simple answer. It's about accountability. Show up, be present, be there. What is important to your supporters should therefore then be important to the football club, and that's something that we are really proud of. At Liverpool, we know that our supporters hold us to a higher regard, probably than other football clubs. Thankfully, our most senior leaders, me, my team, and many, many colleagues, all colleagues across the club, see that as an opportunity to do the right thing. So for me, it's all about accountability, to lean into it, own it, go and be the first. Don't just be the first, but also be the one who's ever present as well.

I get that. So, Lucas, I'm going to come to you. Same question from a fan perspective. get clubs driving initiatives in the way that they do across a broad spectrum of any number of issues. From a fan perspective, how does a fan go from the club setting that example to it being meaningful work on the ground, outside of the stadiums, away from match days?

I would go like I think a lot of clubs, they have a fantastic ideas, but I think what's miss a little bit is the togetherness. I think they should forget the game inside the pitch, you know, that we are all looking to win and beat the Rivals. And again, I come back to the power of football. And if all these clubs get together to the same cause, you know, and engage, I think that's the key for us to change. You know, I think that's what is missing. Liverpool is one of the clubs that, you know, is on it, but I think we need a lot more.

And, Annie, I'll finish with you. What's our responsibility as players in that same quest?

I think the players have responsibility, as Rishi was saying, to bring awareness and give a voice to issues that they care about. And that's a broad spectrum of issues across football. It could be anti-racism. In my world, it's you know, ending violence against women and girls. It's pertinent because of obviously, you know, women's football and that crossover between, you know, women on the pitch and women in their daily lives. I feel I have a responsibility in my work, whether it's with the UN or with other charities like Refuge, to bring awareness to those issues, difficult conversations. But, you know, some of us players, we have bigger platforms than the clubs themselves. right, huge social media followings, the fans hang on our every word. And so I think it's really important to sort of have those difficult conversations and bring awareness and try and drive change as much as possible.

Lady, gents, thank you very much for your perspective, for starting these conversations that we need to have. I will close by saying I've always been a believer, I'm biased, I've always been a believer in this game, what it represents, the impacts it can have. Those impacts are driven by investment to the game at the highest level, investment at every single level, whether it's buying a ball and a pair of cleats for young lady in your community, whatever that may be, this game represents the best of who we are. While the focus will always be on match days, I think clubs are built on community and we continue to drive the best in who those communities are. Thank you very much for your conversation. Thank you very much for your air.