Women’s teams at in FIFA tournaments must have a woman head coach or assistant coach on the bench following fresh legislation brought in by the sport’s governing body.
The FIFA Council approved this new legislation on Thursday, and it comes into effect immediately ahead of the under-17 and U20 Women’s World Cups and FIFA Women’s Champions Cup. In total, teams must have at least two women staff members in their backroom staff, with one needing to be either the head coach or assistant coach.
This ruling applies across all of FIFA’s youth and senior women’s football tournaments, national team competitions and club competitions.
“There are simply not enough women in coaching today. We must do more to accelerate change by creating clearer pathways, expanding opportunities, and increasing the visibility for women on our sidelines,” FIFA chief football officer Jill Ellis said.
“The new FIFA regulations, combined with targeted development programs, mark an important investment in both the current and future generation of female coaches.”
This initiative is aiming to increase the number of women’s coaches, with FIFA saying it’s part of their “long-term strategy, which combines statutory advances with sustained investment in coach education and professional development, to prepare women for such leading positions.”
Just 12 of the 32 head coaches were women at the 2023 World Cup.
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“Of course we need more women in important positions in football,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said at the UEFA Congress in February. “
“So, we should support, of course, more women in football positions and more women generally. Maybe we need … more women coaches in women’s teams.
“This is another debate that we will have to have at some stage because we’ve seen that there are excellent coaches. We saw it at the last European Championship, how women’s football is healthy, how women’s football is growing.”
