On the rise again: More than 160,000 visitors in 2019

In 2019 the FIFA World Football Museum welcomed a record 161,700 visitors through its doors in Zurich, many of them attracted by a programme dedicated to women’s football and the interaction between different football cultures. This was the second consecutive year that the Museum set a new annual top mark for visitors attending its exhibitions and events in Switzerland’s largest city. A further 33,600 visitors attended the Museum’s special exhibitions held abroad in 2019.

“We are delighted to have achieved the aim that we set ourselves two years ago, sustainably increasing the number of visitors that we receive in Zurich by realistic increments from year to year,” said Marco Fazzone, Managing Director of the FIFA World Football Museum. “When you consider that around 50% of our visitors are international, we have lived up to our goal to become a prominent tourist attraction for Zurich.”

2019 also saw the 500,000th visitor through the doors in Zurich since the Museum was opened. Between 28 February 2016 and 31 December 2019, 655,600 visitors came to see the exhibitions and events, both at the FIFA World Football Museum and around the world – 527,800 in Zurich and 127,800 abroad.

The past year saw two special exhibitions presented outside Zurich for the first time. To celebrate the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019™, the Museum joined forces with FIFA Partner Hyundai for three weeks in Paris to present “The Women’s Game”, a special exhibition about the tournament’s past and present, bringing together historical artefacts and new objects from the women’s game acquired for the Museum’s collection. Later in the year, to tie in with The Best FIFA Football Awards 2019™, the Gallerie d’Italia in Milan was home to “The Winner’s Trophies” – a week-long special exhibition.

“We are pleased that our exhibitions in Zurich and Paris helped to promote women’s football in 2019, and through our new acquisitions to the Museum’s collection we will continue build a greater awareness of the history of the women’s game,” Fazzone continued. “With the ‘Foot et Monde Arabe’ special exhibition in Zurich, we worked with the Institut du Monde Arabe, a renowned cultural institution, for the first time. The exhibition showed football’s close ties with history, culture and society in the Arab world, from its origins in the 1880s through to the superstars from the region who made their mark in the last and current centuries, and how it has an influence both on and off the pitch.”

“Our new offer of free entry for school classes and the introduction of museum communicators at our exhibitions and events have been particularly well received, and we will continue to focus on developing our educational and cultural programmes,” said Fazzone, who is looking forward to the coming months. “In 2020, we will turn our attention to eFootball through a new exhibition and experience area, starting in the summer. Zurich will certainly be playing host to a varied and interactive programme!” Further details of the programme will be announced in spring 2020.