FIFA established a new rule on Thursday that teams in all of its women’s competitions must have a women head or assistant coach on the bench.
The rule will apply to next year’s Women’s World Cup in Brazil. At the 2023 World Cup, only 12 of 32 head coaches were female.
“There are simply not enough women in coaching today,” FIFA chief football officer Jill Ellis, the former U.S. Women’s National Team head coach, said in a statement. “We must do more to accelerate change by creating clearer pathways, expanding opportunities, and increasing the visibility for women on our sidelines.”
After Ellis and the USWNT won the 2015 and 2019 World Cups, the team was coached by Vlatko Andonovski in the 2023 tournament. His successor, Emma Hayes, was announced in late 2023 and took over in 2024, and will coach the team in Brazil.
The rule approved at the FIFA Council meeting on Thursday will require at least two female staffers on the bench, with at least one of them at the head or assistant position. All teams competing at FIFA national and club competitions at the youth and senior levels must comply.
Seven of the 12 teams with female head coaches at the 2023 World Cup are now led by men, while six countries at the tournament didn’t have any women on staff, according to The Telegraph.
The first tournament under the new rule will be the U-20 Women’s World Cup in September. The U.S. U-20 team already has a female head coach in Vicky Jepson.
FIFA has a scholarship program for coaches that the global governing body said has supported nearly 800 female coaches since 2021.
“Of course we need more women in important positions in football,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said at the UEFA Congress last month.
“So, we should support, of course, more women in football positions and more women generally. Maybe we need, actually, as well, more women coaches in women’s teams.”
