Youth Ambassador Case Studies

Anna O'Donnell - Free Sanitary Products 2019

Anna O'Donnell was part of the Youth Ambassador Programme from 2019 to 2020 and made a big difference during her time. 

Free sanitary products to tackle period dignity for fans were made available in Hampden Park as a result of a trial between the Scottish FA and social enterprise company Hey Girls. The agreement saw the products become available in 73 female and accessible bathrooms in the National Stadium, available for fans and employees alike.

At the heart of this project was Scottish FA Youth Ambassador, Anna, who can take responsibility for the successful pilot programme at the National Stadium. This is the perfect example of ensuring young people have their say in the game and allowing them to implement change.

Vikki Allan - Refereeing

Vikki Allan is a Referee in Scotland domestically, as well as internationally. During her time as a Youth Ambassador of Change, Vikki played an integral role in giving a voice to the younger people in Scotland, something she placed great importance in. 

During her time as a Scottish FA Ambassador she was involved in: International Women’s day where this year we showcased the female ambassadors, cerebral palsy awareness month in which a parent got in touch with us to find out where their child could join a cerebral palsy league, a record breaking match on top of Kilimanjaro to raise awareness of gender equality in sports and setting up of the youth representatives across the Referee Associations in Scotland.

These 12 representatives are a great step forward in refereeing for young people, giving them a voice locally which can then feed up to myself to feed directly into Scottish FA. This allows them to feedback positives they see at a local level but also where they think there is room for improvement. This hopefully allows us to recruit but especially retain these young referees when they join the refereeing family. Football is growing at a rapid pace but to have a game of football you need referees so I feel it is extremely important that we support the younger generation coming through to come into this side of the sport.

Lyall Cameron - Football Development

Lyall Cameron was a Youth Ambassador associated with the Football Development department in the first two cohorts. When first introduced to the department, the objective was to get more people involved in football. This area of participation covered both engagement and retention. It was decided that participation under retention, specifically drop-out of teenagers between the ages of 15-19, would be my area of focus.

Engagement within this category came about for many reasons, specifically when Lyall reflected over previous experiences of being involved in the SFA School of Football programmes between 2010 and 2013. Introduced by the Scottish FA in partnership with the Government, the School of Football programme was a new initiative, which involved boys and girls training every day as part of their school curriculum. Thinking about the boys he trained with day in day out, I realised that out of the sixteen that were selected in the three-year programme, only four remain playing the game. Twelve boys, 75% of the programme who all showed potential to play football at a high level, somewhere along the line made the decision that playing football was no longer for them - all before the age of 19.

Furthermore, researching into the number of registered players within Scotland and discovering that although there is a greater population within this age range compared to younger ages, there are fewer people playing registered football. As he was in the age range and experiencing the dropout of friends and teammates first hand, this information sparked an interest into the reasons behind their decisions to leave the game.

This identified two questions. Were the reasons mutual with dropouts elsewhere? And what could be done to prevent these reasons becoming a reality for future players?

With the ambition to prevent players leaving the game, over the next few months I intend to thoroughly research this area of participation and hopefully answer these questions. A survey and personal conversations targeting teenagers who have dropped out will be our method of identifying the reasons behind their departure.

Working towards identifying these barriers will hopefully give us a clear indication into what areas of our game need improvement. This will be beneficial for young players that still participate within football. Making changes related to the reasons behind previous dropouts will hopefully prevent or reduce the number of players experiencing the same problems in the future then eventually losing interest in the game. The whole aim of the project is to keep young players involved so that they can enjoy playing the game and develop to the best of their ability.