November 1997 – N° 30 – Report – ENGLISH
The greatest sporting event at the end of the century couldn’t happen without them. And “they” are the 12,000 Volunteers, all selected by the CFO, and all working on a unpaid basis, to help meet the organisational challenges of the World Cup, the 16th in football history. FRANCE 98 Informations tells the story of this Volunteer Programme, the biggest ever undertaken in France.
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“No organising committee can manage without its Volunteers, whether it’s for the World Cup or the Olympic Games. This is a fact, and everyone knows it.” For Fernand Sastre and Michel Platini, Presidents of the French Organising Committee, the FRANCE 98 Volunteer Programme forms a vital part of the organisation, no less important than Ticketing or Marketing. A fact, yes; a tradition, too. |
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The media, reception and security are the three areas involving the largest number of Volunteers. |
The involvement of people from the community has become a constant factor, a kind of thread running through all big sporting events over recent years. In France, the Winter Olympics at Albertville in 1992 called on 9,000 volunteers, and recently the World Youth meetings in Paris on the occasion of the Pope’s visit brought together 6,000 helpers.
And FRANCE 98 is no different: 12,000 Volunteers will be taking part in the organisation of the World Cup finals, making the venture the biggest Volunteer programme ever undertaken in France. And there’ll be plenty of work for them, too, because the 704 players, 9,500 media representatives and 2,500,000 spectators turning up for the great FRANCE 98 celebration will all need looking after in various ways for over a month.
The CFO has three objectives as the mainstay of this ambitious programme: selection, training, and management, and it is in these three areas that the CFO has teamed up with Manpower, the world specialist in human resource management, and the Official Temporary Work Network for FRANCE 98.
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More than 20,000 candidates! |
By 30 September 1997, the closing date, 20,864 applications for the Volunteer Programme had been registered by the Committee, but it was only possible to take on 12,000 of them (900 to 1500 per venue). The selection process was divided among the FRANCE 98 venues, one of whose first tasks was to launch the Volunteer Programme on a local level. Out of the eleven heads of Human Resources (to all intents and purposes the International Media Centre counts as a venue, as well as the cities), eight are Manpower managers working for the Committee.
At the very start of the operation, the CFO made it a policy to choose Volunteers from the cities and regions where they would be working, to ensure their complete familiarity with the territory. This policy has been largely adhered to, as 66% of the Volunteers belong to the region or the actual city to which they have been posted. To select its 12,000 “ambassadors”, the CFO targeted several specific networks. Above all, those already involved in football (over a third of the Volunteers come from the footballing community, in other words clubs, districts, leagues and so on), but also colleges and universities and the FRANCE 98 Commercial Affiliates. And last but not least, those who contacted the CFO off their own bat.
| From now until the World Cup starts, 12,000 Volunteers will be undergoing a three-stage training programme |
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The FRANCE 98 Volunteers will all be getting special training during the months leading up to the World Cup, to enable them to perform their tasks efficiently and well. This training, which has already started, will take place in three stages. First of all, the Volunteers will all have a basic session dealing with football in general and the World Cup in particular.
Then they will get special training on the jobs they will actually be doing. Finally, they will have training for the venues where they’ll be working. In addition, any Volunteers undertaking positions of responsibility will have a special session on management and how to deal with staff. All in all, this adds up to around 20,000 hours over three months, with a training team of a thousand!
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An invaluable experience |
Once recruited, the 12,000 Volunteers will be entrusted with 150 different kinds of jobs during the World Cup, covering all aspects of organisation: reception, security, foreign-language assistance, accreditation, ticketing, transport, press, logistics, telecommunications, IT and medical assistance, to name but a few. Half the Volunteers will only be in action on match days, that is, between six and nine days in total over the duration of the competition. Those at Marseille, however, will be working as early as 4 December during the final group draw. For this occasion, there will be 750 Volunteers on hand.
| Volunteers will be easily spotted by their “kit”. Just like the members of a football team… |
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Besides their enthusiasm and desire to be at the heart of the action during a very special event, there are other reasons behind the Volunteers’ involvement. For those active in the workforce, for example, there is the incentive of getting valuable professional experience under their belts.
The students – who make up a large percentage of the FRANCE 98 Volunteers – are also looking for experience which will enhance their future prospects of landing a job as well as offering the opportunity to put some of the theory they have learned into practice. For them, taking part in the organisation of the World Cup is a form of field trip. Another aspect is that as from July 1998 Manpower is to launch several projects as follow-ups to the Volunteers’ work for World Cup, thereby setting a seal on all the skills they will have acquired during the event.
The first of these is the “Manpower-FRANCE 98 Diploma.” Secondly, for Volunteers who are interested, Manpower will be putting a team at their disposal who can give them all the information they may need to help develop their careers. Finally, from September 1998 onwards, Manpower will be contacting 70,000 of its company clients to pave the way for Volunteers who may apply for work with them. So, as one story ends, another begins…
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In the original language |
Apart from French, of course, English is at the top of the list of other languages spoken fluently by the Volunteers. In all, they share 21 languages between them, some being proficient in as many as five.
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* “Football”: come from the footballing community (clubs, districts, leagues…)
** “Miscellaneous”: events, meals, communication…