Wearing a blindfold, 11-year-old María kicks the ball into a small goal after instructions from a team-mate. Quickly removing the blindfold, she laughs at her shot and, without any fuss, moves on to the next exercise in another sector of pitch. Shortly afterwards, María and 100 other girls between the ages of eight and 12 have their photo taken with the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup trophy and with KINTI™, the Official Mascot of Colombia 2024. Saturday 17 August turned out to be an unforgettable day for the girls and family members who accompanied them to the facilities of the Colombian Football Federation (FCF) in Bogotá. Camila Terreros also had a smile of satisfaction. The FCF's Director of Women's Football Development knows that the second Women's Football Festival Juguemos Juntas (Let's Play Together), which she organised in collaboration with FIFA, has been a success, as was the first one held in Cali two weeks earlier. The third and final festival will take place in Medellín on Saturday 24 August, completing the event planned for the three World Cup venues.

"The Federation's strategy for women's football consists of three main pillars: the first is the training of all coaches; the second is our national teams; and the third is the visibility of the activity. I think festivals like these encompass all three," Terreros tells Inside FIFA. "Firstly, we provided training for all the coaches who were participating in the festivals. As far as our national teams go, these girls are the future, and I think events like these show them that their future could be in football. As for visibility, that’s clear to see: as part of the (FIFA U-20 Women’s) World Cup, we want all of Colombia, and not just the three host cities, to support us and all the other players who will visit us [for the tournament]," she adds. The training seminars for the 43 participating coaches, which took place on 26 and 27 July in Bogotá, and the festivals themselves were attended by Elieth Atravia and Lucía Mijares, two FIFA women's football experts, who put these FCF initiatives into context for us.

"The FIFA Women's Football Campaign emerged from the desire to bring women’s football to the masses and promote it at a global level. Many federations are using it as a means of development, promoting football from when the sport is first played," says Atravia. Since its launch in September 2021, the programme has already been adopted by 57 FIFA member associations. "In the case of festivals, FIFA aims to help federations understand what holding a festival requires before, during and after the event. The goal is not only to hold the festival, but what happens next and what the federation will do," adds the Costa Rican. That is why it is important that training and festivals go hand in hand. "Colombia has a very good base of coaches focused on women's football. Our work was to strengthen and align this knowledge under the themes of safeguarding, which is very important for FIFA, leadership and education around health, pedagogical and methodological issues, thus reinforcing the base of the pyramid, which is girls," adds Mijares.

The role of the coaches, who received their diplomas after the festival, is key, as Atravia points out. "They become people who make others better, because if we develop their skills, they can become agents of change. What we want at FIFA is for them to show others that events like this are a way to attract talent, develop the game and bring women's football to the masses in their regions." The fact that the upcoming FIFA U-20 World Cup is the backdrop to all this is crucial, says Atravia. "A World Cup really opens the door for people to carry out activities related to sports, to have access to football schools and to people being interested in coaching girls from an early age." The participating girls and their families even got to see their country’s U-20 women’s team preparing for the upcoming World Cup on an adjoining pitch, which generated a lot of admiration, according to Mijares. "This is one of the great legacies that the women’s football sector wants to create; that the family members, coaches and girls have an organic but, above all, fun approach to what this is: the great celebration of the (U-20) Women’s World Cup in Colombia."

For Terreros, any legacy-related matter is very significant. "On one hand, we are going to have the first two hybrid pitches in Colombia, the Estadio [Olímpico] Pascual Guerrero in Cali and the Estadio [Metropolitano] de Techo in Bogotá. But the four stadiums that we’re going to have as venues are being turned into top-class stadiums for future international events," she says. "On the other hand, there is the issue of the culture of women's football that is currently being generated. With the league, we have had a lot of success in terms of crowds and attendances at finals, and I think this event is going to generate a little more of that culture in families, girls, and boys, in terms of getting them to go out and support female players at the grounds.”