On November 14th-15th 2024, partners in the TPDS (Towards the Professional Development of Supporter Liaison Officers project met in the historic Swedish city of Malmö to review progress and plan their next steps.
TPDS is a transnational project aimed at improving the training of Supporter Liaison Officers (SLOs) who are fast becoming vital ingredients in providing safety, security and service at football events.
Established by UEFA in 2010 and now formally endorsed by the Council of the European Union, SLOs have a key preventive role in minimising spectator-related disorder by facilitating dialogue between football fans, their clubs, and other stakeholders such as the national associations, leagues and the police, and helping to improve matchday operations. However, the role is relatively new, and very few training opportunities exist for the 1 000+ SLOs employed by professional clubs and federations across Europe.
At the meeting, which was expertly hosted by Malmö University, EOSE was pleased to announce the first major deliverable from the project – a report on recommendations for the development of occupational standards for the SLO role. This was followed by three university partners based in France, Poland and Sweden outlining their proposals to design and pilot training modules based on the emerging occupational standards in mid-2025. The meeting finished with a presentation from the Brazilian Football Confederation presenting their plans to extend the SLO role to the South American continent next year.
As a short break from their intensive discussions over two days, the partners enjoyed a guided walking tour of the city enthusiastically led by Tony Ernst representing the project coordinator, Football Supporters Europe (FSE) and former chair of the Malmö FF supporters’ club. This highly informative experience took in many beautiful historic buildings and concluded with a visit to the club’s stadium and a traditional Swedish dinner.
Progress report
TPDS is a three-year Erasmus+ sport project, led by Football Supporters Europe (FSE). The consortium gathers EOSE, the German University of Kassel (which was the first institution to offer a higher education certificate for SLOs), the universities of Gdańsk (Poland), Limoges (France) and Malmö (Sweden) and the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) as partners. The engagement of CONMEBOL will test the SLO role and training requirements on a different continent as the first step to rolling out SLOs in professional football across the world.
At present, very few national football associations and leagues offer SLOs advanced training. A large number of SLOs across Europe receive only basic instruction, and many receive none at all. ‘Learning by doing’ is simply not enough and professional training has become a high priority. Innovative educational pathways, based on occupational standards and sustainable provision in higher education, will help to make the football matchday experience safer, more secure and based on higher levels of service for the fans.
EOSE is delighted to be actively involved in this ambitious project and to bring its expertise and innovative approach to the development of occupational standards as well as fit-for-purpose training programmes.
Since the project launch in June 2023, TPDS partners have met three times in-person in Frankfurt, Gdańsk and Malmö and many more times in interim online planning meetings. TPDS achievements so far include:
- FSE setting up a Technical Working Group consisting of practising SLOs from professional clubs in eight European leagues to support EOSE in developing occupational standards
- EOSE developing a functional map and recommendations for the development of occupational standards
- The universities of Gdańsk, Limoges and Malmö designing draft SLO training modules, based on the standards and building on the experience of Kassel.
In 2025, the project will:
- Produce full occupational standards and a Handbook for their use
- Pilot and finalise the draft training modules
- Create a toolkit for the professionalisation of SLOs and roadmap for the South American continent.
Geoff Carroll, EOSE’s Director of Skills Development, who has been leading on the occupational standards, expressed his full satisfaction:
“SLOs have a significant impact on safety, security and service at football events by building bridges between clubs/federations and their fanbase. The role is now seen as crucial by football authorities worldwide.
“This meeting represents an important landmark in the journey towards professionalisation of SLOs in Europe and globally. We are so pleased that all the partners welcome the emergence of occupational standards for the role – which have never existed before – and praised the systematic and inclusive approach which EOSE has taken. The university partners fully understand the importance of the standards and are now using the identified competencies as the building blocks for future, fit-for-purpose training programmes. We are really looking forward to seeing their efforts coming to fruition next year and the impact this will have on the professionalisation of the SLOs who take part in the pilot training.”
