In September 2021, a beaming Vera Pauw, head coach, along with her then-assistant coach Eileen Gleeson, rejoiced at the Ireland women’s football team’s victory over Australia in a friendly that made up part of their preparation for the World Cup qualification journey.
In a match watched by 3,314 supporters in person and more on TV, both the players and Pauw and Gleeson showed the country what a female coaching ticket can achieve.
With the understanding that women coaches – at every level from under-8s to professional – offer diverse perspectives, additional skills and advocate for women and girl’s needs, more research is being done and more efforts are being made to bridge the gap between the idea and the reality of coaching.
Although the path to professionalism for players is becoming clearer, when a woman in sports’ passion and talents align more with coaching, the path isn’t as instructive. There is no map to follow, fewer blueprints to build on. Even for players moving from the pitch to the sidelines there are obstacles.
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Pauw, who spoke at Sport Ireland’s inaugural Women in Sport Coaching Conference earlier this month, is a prime example of this, having made the transition from player to coach in 1998. Her “tigers” are preparing for the same with the support of Uefa. The FAI have a record number of international players working with the association’s coach education department to gain their coaching qualifications. Players are undertaking either their Uefa B, Uefa Youth B or PDP 1 Licence courses, with some having completed them already.
This is in line with Uefa, who in 2019 launched #TimeForAction, with the aim of increasing both the number of qualified female coaches and the total club and national teams coached by women. In 2016, the FAI had 10 female Uefa registered coaches, whereas in April 2022, there are now 230 female Uefa licence holders.
[ Vera Pauw: ‘I want to say to all the women, if you have the guts, deal with it’Opens in new window ]
However, in rugby this year, coaching was flagged as an area where visibility and a clear pathway were missing. In the IRFU Women in Rugby report, conducted independently by Amanda Barrett of Fair Play, nearly half of survey respondents stated they did not know what coaching pathways exist, with one commenting that “there’s a lack of clarity around the pathways for female coaches/referees from engagement to high performance”.
Offering “current and former international players discounted or fully funded coach and/or referee education and deploy them to regional centres of excellence as part of the player pathway programme” was suggested in the report. While it is a road heavily trod for men, it has been less travelled in the women’s game.
Retiring players have a wealth of knowledge and experience to offer. When Lynn Cantwell, former Ireland international, was appointed high performance manager for South Africa, it was widely seen as a missed opportunity to the Irish women’s rugby set up. The union has seemed to learn from this and while Niamh Briggs, Tania Rosser and Fiona Hayes have made the leap from player to coach, the suggestions in the report would enable a system of educating players in the autumn of their careers and showing them a potential route for giving back to the game.
As with many women in sport topics, things are better than they’ve ever been but with plenty of room for improvement
Aside from player turned coaches, a clear pathway for women looking to reach/return to high-performance coaching can be found online. In an attempt to carve a path for clubs and organisations, Sport Ireland have ample resources on their website; including individual profiles for coaches involved in a range of sports including rowing, camogie, badminton, swimming and basketball; a comprehensive toolkit for clubs looking to recruit, develop and retain female coaches; and are in the process of establishing a coaching network for female elite coaches – something that was expressly requested in its study.
As with many women in sport topics, things are better than they’ve ever been but with plenty of room for improvement. There are women coaches across sports in Ireland, but the challenge now is to encourage more women to take it up, to create welcoming club cultures, and to ensure they’re adequate supported along the way.
As the Sports Ireland and Women in Rugby reports show, there is no time like the present to create the systems that will see the number and quality of registered female coaches in Ireland increase. As Pauw said following Ireland’s first time qualifying for the World Cup: “This is our chance, this is our moment, we are going to do it.”
