Honey Thaljieh – 2nd April, 2023
Expert Speaker – Honey Thaljieh, Communications Special Projects Manager at FIFA and the Co-Founder of Women’s Football in Palestine
Honey Thaljieh, Communications Special Projects Manager at FIFA and the Co-founder of Women’s Football in Palestine conducted a CIES Conference for the participants of the 22-23 batch of the PILLAI/FIFA CIES Executive Programme in Sports Management on 2nd April, 2023. Ms. Thalijieh is also a FIFA Master and a trailblazer as the Captain of the first-ever Women’s National Team in Palestine. The topic of the conference was “THE CORPORATE STORY OF FIFA & SPORTS COMMUNICATIONS”.
Ms. Thalijieh started the session by sharing her journey beginning with her childhood, and her love for football leading her to start a revolution in her country with respect to women’s football. As the session progressed, she spoke about the structure of FIFA, details of the federations and member nations, the process of elections, etc. She shared the revenues of the FIFA World Cup from 2010 to 2022 and the potential estimations for FIFA WORLD CUP 2026. She said it was encouraging to see more women becoming a part of this big ecosystem, even though the numbers are small the participation of women is growing. She elaborated on the various campaigns, especially for women led by FIFA, and how she is a part of it. She also spoke about how she became the Brand Ambassador of Athletic Club Bilbao.
After the lunch break, it was time to test the communication skills of the class. Ms. Thalijieh divided the class into two groups and they were given a task related to the Athletic Club Bilbao’s player signing policy. One group had to talk about the pros of this policy of the club, and the other group had to prepare what were the cons of using this policy with respect to the future of the club.
Both groups also had to come up with their separate tag lines. After their research, the groups were given specific time to speak and explain their views. Later on, one participant from both groups was selected to work together and finalize a common solution and a common tagline. It was an excellent assignment.
The students were very impressed by Ms. Thaljieh’s session and more importantly were quite inspired by her journey to get to where she is today.
