Danish Premier League side, FC Nordsjaelland played their crunch home derby wearing shirts featuring the names of their personal female role models.
As part of the club’s contribution to International Women’s Day, the entire senior men’s squad decided to remove their own names and instead play with the names of their sheroes.
The players’ choices represent a broad spectrum of important and strong women, who all have a personal meaning to the players. These include Michelle Obama, J.K. Rowling, Beyonce, Serena Williams and the Queen of Denmark, Queen Margrethe II.
Centre Back, Victor Nelsson, who chose Queen Margrethe II, said, “Everyone in this country respects her.”
“When I think of Denmark, I think of her.”
“I’m the captain and must lead and unify a group of people from different backgrounds and personalities towards a common goal.”
“I can find inspiration in Queen Magrethe, who has achieved this and set such a remarkable standard for it through many years on behalf of the people of Denmark.”
Most of the unique shirts will be sold by the club’s sponsors after the match, but a few are planned to go on general online auctions. All the money raised through the shirt sales will be donated to the club’s academy for girls, which was opened on International Women’s Day last year.
CEO of FC Nordsjaelland, Soren Kristensen, says, “Equality is one of the core principles for FCN as well as for our owners at Right to Dream, and we work to promote this every single day.”
“For us it’s only natural to use our platform as a professional club to create focus on this – especially on IWD, and we’ve been very pleased to see the positive and energetic approach our men’s team has shown in the process of finding and saluting their female role models.”
The unprecedented initiative, which has been praised by UN Women and Juan Mata’s charity, Common Goal, which FC Nordsjaelland was the first, and so far, only club in the world to join last year.
