The defining theme of an important soccer league match was not the 3-0 score. It was not the rival fans or any player contract talks.

The theme of the game day was a small sign of diversity that we made so big that everyone was talking about it. The match day, including pre- and post-match coverage, was our vehicle for an important message.

As a brand, FC St. Pauli stands for inclusion and diversity like no other club. As a professional soccer club, FC St. Pauli has the power to reach audiences, that usually have no touchpoints to the topic of gender equality.

In the German language, all personal designations (like “student”, “passenger” or “manager”) are either male or female. Unfortunately, most people only use the male version – and assume that all genders feel included, even though the awareness is needed to lead to equality and inclusion for all genders. While some parts of the population at least discuss the topic, many are still unaware it even exists.

All winners of the German Soccer Championship get to wear a star above their jersey’s club crest. We decided to place a gender star there instead and invented the Meister*innen-jersey (Champions Diversity Jersey), to set a strong symbol for diversity. With that, we transported our message into the stadium and direct contact with all viewers – live and on screens. And addressed injustice in the German language, which is a symptom of injustice in society.

Soccer is for everyone. But in truth, only binary genders are seen and addressed.

Our strategy is very simple: We wanted to address all (really ALL) fans and give them the visibility they deserve.

We have designed a special jersey for a match day. It carries THE sign for diversity. The professional football players wore it at a league game. That's all we had to do, because everyone saw it - and talked about it.

Many people wanted to have the jersey to make a statement themselves. Within the shortest time it was sold out.

The team played against FC Magdeburg wearing the jersey and won 3:0. Even better than the sporting result: a huge press response, with over 64 million contacts - the Meister*innen-jersey was also discussed intensively in numerous soccer podcasts and on social media. All the proceeds of the jersey sales went to PinkStinks, an educational organization against sexism. Once again, FC St. Pauli has shown its fans and everyone else how much it cares about diversity.

The Meister*innen-jersey, which was available in the fan-shops, is sold out.