FIFA’s council on Thursday adopted a new rule aimed at increasing the role of women in leadership, changing its participation requirements for all nations ahead of the 2027 Women’s World Cup.
The FIFA Council described the rules as “landmark” to mandate female representation in the coaching staff across women’s soccer teams if they wish to participate in FIFA tournaments. This rule includes the FIFA Women’s Champions Cup, which had its inaugural match in January, and the upcoming Women’s World Cup in Brazil next summer.
According to FIFA, the new rules require teams to have a female head coach or a woman serving in an assistant head coach role. According to FIFA, two women staff should also be on the bench.
Jill Ellis, FIFA’s chief football officer, said the rule changes would be linked to development programs that represented an investment in women in coaching.
“We must do more to accelerate change by creating clear pathways, expanding opportunities and increasing visibility for women on our side,” Ellis said.
FIFA described the move as a long-term strategy to invest in women in leadership positions across the sport as women’s soccer grows at an exponential rate. FIFA notes that despite the millions of girls and women playing on the pitch, “coaching positions are predominantly occupied by men”.
This was demonstrated to soccer fans at the 2023 Women’s World Cup, where only 12 of the 32 head coaches were women.
A 2019 survey of the women’s game by FIFA found that only 7% of coaching positions in its member associations are held by women. That number dropped to just 5% in the 2023 survey by the governing body.
Coaching licenses typically operate in a tiered system, with lower levels allowing people to coach youth soccer. Licensing continues to increase with respect to the semi-professional and professional levels.
The top-tier licenses required for head coaching positions can cost thousands of dollars worldwide, with the highest level of a US soccer license costing $10,000 and $6,250 for an A-license course for the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).
Those costs can be burdensome because salaries for women in soccer have not historically been high, although some teams and federations may offer some form of sponsorship to those seeking licenses.
Twila Kilgore, a former assistant coach for the US women’s national team, told The Associated Press in 2023 that she was able to get her pro license with the help of the club where she worked.
Kilgore is now the technical director for the same club, the Houston Dash of the National Women’s Soccer League.
“I can tell you it’s been a huge blessing because every step of licensing up to this point, I’ve been paid for with a little bit of an offset from the universities I’ve worked with,” Kilgore said at the time. “That’s a major barrier for a lot of people.”
