Hasselt (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Hasselt aims to grow women’s football as Jos Hoogstijns plans a dedicated team. A Futbalista Festival at Juve Stadium on Sunday, Oct 19, 2025, invites girls aged 5–12 to join free activities.
As VRT News reported, Hasselt trails in Women’s football participation. Jos Hoogstijns from Lummen wants to change that. Across Flanders, 127,000 boys are registered with Voetbal Vlaanderen. Only 28,000 girls are registered.
He mentioned that in Hasselt, some girls play football, but they are spread across boys’ teams at clubs such as Hades, Sporting Hasselt, and Hogerop Heide. Girls can play with boys until they turn 18. After that, they must join an all-girls team. This rule often forces players to leave their local clubs or move to another town. Hoogstijns says this makes it difficult to build a strong women’s football community in Hasselt.
“But after that transition, they no longer play with peers, and the travel also causes many girls to drop out at that point,”
says Jos Hoogstijns, who also launched a program to find more female football coaches.
What is being done to grow women’s football in Hasselt?
Hoogstijns is now advocating for a women’s football team in Hasselt. The team would allow current players to stay in the city.
“We did this with Fubalista Festivals, and we had the Linkhout girls compete with the Red Flames during international matches,”
says Hoogstijns.
“It raised awareness and gave the project a huge boost. As a result, Linkhout now has a separate girls’ team competing.”
Hasselt is taking its first steps to grow women’s football, and Jos Hoogstijns says it will take time. He calls the project a long-term effort that begins with attracting more girls to the sport.
“First, we need to ensure a broader influx, which means getting more girls playing football,”
Hoogstijns said. He plans to achieve this with Futbalista Festivals and by bringing together the current Hasselt women’s footballers from different teams more often.
The first event will take place this Sunday, Oct 19, 2025, at the Juve stadium in Hasselt. Girls aged 5 to 12 can join the Futbalista Festival for free between 1:30 PM and 3:30 PM. The festival will introduce them to football in a fun and easy way. Activities include football games, skill circuits, penalty shootouts, and small-sided matches. Organisers say the event will give girls practical experience.
Jos Hoogstijns, a certified football coach from Lummen, has been promoting women’s football in Limburg for more than 10 years. In 2015, he started a project in Linkhout to get more girls involved in the sport. The project was successful and led to the creation of the women’s team KWS Linkhout. Building on that success, Hoogstijns is now focusing on Hasselt. He wants to establish a dedicated women’s football team in the city.
Brussels Morning is a daily online newspaper based in Belgium. BM publishes unique and independent coverage on international and European affairs. With a Europe-wide perspective, BM covers policies and politics of the EU, significant Member State developments, and looks at the international agenda with a European perspective.
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