Stephanie Ann Jones (born 22 December 1972) is a German-American

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

manager and former player who last managed the German women's national team. As a defender, she earned 111 caps for the national team between 1993 and 2007, helping her country win the

2003 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup was the fourth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial championship of women's national soccer teams organized by FIFA. It was held in the United States from September 20 to October 12, 2003, at s ...

and three consecutive

European Championships The European Championships is a multi-sport tournament which brings together the existing European Championships of some of the continent's leading sports every four years. The inaugural edition in 2018 was staged by the host cities of Berlin, ...

. After retiring from active football, Jones worked as a football

administrator Administrator or admin may refer to: Job roles Computing and internet * Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database * Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum * N ...

, in charge of organising the

2011 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup was the sixth FIFA Women's World Cup competition, the world championship for women's national association football teams. It was held from 26 June to 17 July 2011 in Germany, which won the right to host the even ...

in Germany, before becoming a manager.

Playing career

Club

Jones started playing football at the age of four. From 1979 to 1986, she played in mixed youth teams for

SV Bonames SV, Sv, sv, etc. may refer to: Places and language * El Salvador, ISO 3166-1 country code SV * South Vietnam, an extinct state * Svalbard, Norway, FIPS country code SV * Swedish language, ISO 639-1 language code sv * Silicon Valley, a region ...

in Frankfurt. In 1986, she joined the girls' team of

SG Praunheim SG, Sg or sg may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * "SG" (song), a 2021 song by DJ Snake, Ozuna, Lisa, and Megan Thee Stallion * Gibson SG, an electric guitar manufactured by Gibson Guitar Corporation * SG Wannabe, a South Korean music gro ...

, and moved to the club's women's team in 1988. In 1991, Jones moved to

FSV Frankfurt Fußballsportverein Frankfurt 1899 e.V., commonly known as simply FSV Frankfurt, is a German association football club based in the Bornheim district of Frankfurt am Main, Hesse and founded in 1899. FSV Frankfurt also fielded a rather successfu ...

, and subsequently changed teams almost every year until she joined

1. FFC Frankfurt Eintracht Frankfurt is a German women's association football club based in Frankfurt. Its first team currently plays in the German top flight, Frauen-Bundesliga. From 1998 to 2020, the club was known as 1. FFC Frankfurt. Eintracht have won sev ...

in 2000. In 2002, she joined

Washington Freedom Washington Freedom was an American professional soccer club based in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Germantown, Maryland, that participated in Women's Professional Soccer. The Freedom was founded in 2001 as a member of the defunct Women's Uni ...

to play in WUSA for two years before returning to Frankfurt. Jones ended her career as a player on 9 December 2007.

International

Jones' first cap for the German national team was in 1993, during the third-place match of the

UEFA Women's Championship The UEFA European Women's Championship, also called the UEFA Women's Euro, held every four years, is the main competition in women's association football between national teams of the UEFA confederation. The competition is the women's equivalent ...

against Denmark, which Germany lost. From 1997, she won three consecutive European Championships and a bronze medal at the

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

. Jones was also part of the squad that won the

; she suffered a rupture of her cruciate ligament in the third game of the tournament and was sidelined for six months. She won Olympic bronze for the second time at the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

. Jones announced the end of her international career on 26 March 2007. She finished her career with nine goals in 111 caps.

Coaching and administration

Post-retirement, Jones served as president of the organisation committee of the

, held in Germany. She subsequently obtained her coaching license at the German Sport University Cologne. After serving as assistant manager of the national team under Silvia Neid, Jones assumed the position of head coach in August 2016. She was released on 13 March 2018.

Personal life

A dual German and American citizen, Jones is the daughter of a German mother and an African-American father. Her father was a soldier stationed in what was then West Germany; he left the family early in her life to return to the United States. Jones was raised by her single mother in a working-class neighborhood in Frankfurt. One brother, Christian, has struggled with drug addiction; another brother, Frank, served as an American soldier in Iraq and lost both legs in an assault in 2006. Jones entered a

registered partnership A civil union (also known as a civil partnership) is a legally recognized arrangement similar to marriage, created primarily as a means to provide recognition in law for same-sex couples. Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage ...

with her girlfriend, Nicole, in June 2014. She had

come out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

publicly as a

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

in February 2013. Jones' autobiography, ''Der Kick des Lebens'' (''The Kick of Life''), was released in August 2007. In 2021, she featured in ', a documentary detailing the experiences of

Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

players in German professional football.

Managerial record

''As of 4 March 2018.''

Honours

Personal

*11 June 2006: DE-HE Der Hessische Verdienstorden BAR

Hessian Order of Merit "for many years of voluntary services as patron of the Ballance 2006 – Integration und Toleranz für eine friedliche Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft projectHessische Staatskanzlei: ''Hessischer Verdienstorden für Steffi Jones''
Pressemitteilung vom 11. Juni 2006

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Steffi 1972 births Living people German women's footballers FIFA Century Club Germany women's international footballers Footballers at the 2000 Summer Olympics Footballers at the 2004 Summer Olympics Olympic bronze medalists for Germany Footballers from Frankfurt Washington Freedom players German people of African-American descent 1. FFC Frankfurt players Expatriate women's soccer players in the United States German expatriates in the United States SC 07 Bad Neuenahr players FSV Frankfurt (women) players 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup players 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup players Olympic medalists in football Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics Women's association football defenders Lesbian sportswomen LGBT African Americans German LGBT sportspeople German LGBT footballers FIFA Women's World Cup-winning players Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics Germany women's national football team managers German women's football managers Olympic women's footballers of Germany UEFA Women's Championship-winning players Female association football managers African-American women's soccer players American women's soccer players 21st-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American women 20th-century African-American sportspeople 20th-century African-American women 1. FFC 08 Niederkirchen players