FIFA's Football for Health: applying Kotter's eight-step programme for transformational change to a mass participation activity.

537 Br J Sports Med June 2010 Vol 44 No 8 FIFA President Sepp Blatter deserves tremendous credit. Blatter’s leadership has been remarkable for moving health from irrelevance to preeminence in a major sport.2 Blatter and the Chair of the FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC), Professor Jiri Dvorak, supported by Dr Michel D’Hooghe, Chair of FIFA Medical Committee, convened national sporting organisation leaders together with a sports medicine lead from almost 200 countries to the fi rst Football for Health conference (Zurich, 2009). That is how FIFA/F-MARC conveyed a sense of urgency. The meeting was not a talk-fest, but carefully structured to obtain buy-in for the concept of having active ‘medical commissions’ in each country. One goal for FIFA.