During recent years, UEFA has raised the profile of women's football through the development of competitions, conferences and technical activities, and the events of 2005 confirmed that progress is being made.

We want to stimulate, motivate and encourage the associations by inviting them to join the Charter, and then getting as much out of it as they can. UEFA will help them achieve their grassroots objectives.

Coach education is very important for UEFA. If you educate good coaches, they in turn produce good players. So each country is enthusiastic about the training of its coaches.

The material from the competition will be available to the associations for use in coach education and other technical work.

The idea of the coaching convention is, first of all, to upgrade the standard of coach education in Europe and thereby further develop the quality of football in general. The second aim is to facilitate the free movement of coaches within the countries who have signed the agreement.

We should never forget that the stars at the top were once grassroots players themselves.