New team members and change of roles at Play the Game

Play the Game is set for an injection of new skills and perspectives as two exciting professional profiles are joining our team on 1 November 2024. 

Arriving with a mix of academic achievement and industry experience, Layne Vandenberg will take up a position as our new researcher. Her previous research and field work has spanned five continents, bringing her to countries as different as Brazil, China, and Kenya, and from 2019-2023 she undertook various advisory and project management functions at UEFA. Today, she is an advisor to the city of Boston in the US as it prepares to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Her 2023 PhD dissertation from King’s College London & University of Hong Kong was inspired by Play the Game’s 2017 report on sports autonomy and entitled ‘International multilateral organisations and state resistance: case study analyses of FIFA’s member associations and state-led ‘government interference’.’

Layne Vandenberg is an American citizen and will be working remotely from her current base in Italy on a half time basis. She will become deeply involved in Play the Game’s ClearingSport project and an upcoming Erasmus+-project, 'The Real European Sport Model' in cooperation with the International Sport and Culture Association (ISCA).

The other addition to the team will also work remotely, as the Egyptian-Canadian journalist and researcher Karim Zidan is mainly based in North America.

For many following the geopolitics of sport, Karim Zidan is already a household name after ten years of research and journalistic work at the intersection of sports, politics, culture and human rights.

Karim Zidan’s career started at the age of 23 when he was hired by Russian MMA-leaders to be a tv commentator, but his focus gradually took a more political direction.

He has honed his journalistic skills in Russia and across the Middle East, reporting on topics including Saudi Arabia’s sports ambitions, Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov’s purge of LGBTQ+ peoples in Chechnya, and how neo-Nazis utilised mixed martial arts to radicalise disenfranchised youth in countries such as the United States, Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Much of his work can be found on his media platform Sports Politica which he will continue to run while working ten hours a week for Play the Game.

“When we advertised a full-time position for a researcher in August, we did not expect that we would end up with two part-time employees or that they would work remotely,” says Troels Rasmussen, director of the Danish Institute for Sport of which Play the Game is an integral part.

“We received an unexpected number of international applications of a very high standard from more than 160 applicants, and we saw an opportunity to find an even better solution than we were looking for. With Layne Vandenberg and Karim Zidan we have found a combination that will strengthen the global outlook of Play the Game, widen our cultural perspectives, and add new creativity and quality to the daily work.”

Generational shift

On the internal lines, Play the Game uses the occasion to take another step in the generational shift that has been going on for some years. Senior analyst Stanis Elsborg will become head of Play the Game with responsibility for running and developing Play the Game on a daily basis, while Jens Sejer Andersen will take a role as a senior advisor at his own request.

“It is a perfect moment for us all to make a change that I have been looking forward to for some time. 28 years have passed since I started preparing our first conference, and I look forward to switching from the driver’s to the co-driver’s seat,” Jens Sejer Andersen says.

Stanis Elsborg feels “excited and humbled by the opportunity to lead Play the Game and to build on the tremendous work and direction Jens has established over nearly three decades." He says:

“The addition of our new team members brings valuable new insights that will advance our capacity to deal with the most important sports -political matters. I look forward to what comes next for Play the Game - and every direction benefits from a great co-driver.”