Five students from the Higher School of Economics win the 2016 FIFA/CIES Network Prize

During a meeting held on 14 January 2016 at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, an international jury consisting of representatives from FIFA, CIES and academia awarded the 2016 FIFA/CIES International University Network Prize to five students from the Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow (Russia).

After lengthy discussions due to the difficulty of making a final decision from the 14 submitted projects, the jury decided to award the 2016 FIFA/CIES Network Prize to the work presented by Olga Laeva, Elena Bortnichek, Daria Smirnova, Lev Fertelmeyster and Maksim Shipov. The five winning students are from the first edition of the HSE/FIFA/CIES Programme in sport management, and their work is on “The 360º Academy: Development of a sports academy educational model”. Their project aims to improve the sports education system in Russia by creating a school model focused on sport which proposes solutions to allow the harmonious and balanced development of athletes.

The jury members pointed out numerous strengths in the project, and in particular its strong academic dimension and theoretical framework. They also appreciated the fact that it has already been implemented in the Russian sporting world.

In addition, the jury has awarded a special mention to the project “Green Goal: Sustainability in Football” which was submitted by Warren Hartland and Maximilian S. Grünewald, - two students from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in Port Elizabeth (South Africa). Their project explores the possibility of using a football stadium in order to provide a local community with lighting. Its sustainable dimension should become a model for further research.

The jury members underlined the continuing and pleasing improvement in the quality of the submitted projects. Consequently, they would like to thank all the universities and all the students of the FIFA/CIES Network for their excellent work.

In this respect, CIES General Secretary Vincent Schatzmann commented: “The Network Prize creates healthy competition among the various partner universities. We can see that the students’ involvement and the quality of the group projects have developed in a positive way from year to year. The topics are varied. They range from improvement of managerial structures to environmental challenges facing sport or to data processing applications related to security. By analysing tangible problems and by providing practical and realistic solutions, project groups contribute to a relevant reflection on sport at national level.”

FIFA and CIES offer their congratulations to the prizewinning students!