All women's national teams must include 'at least one female head coach or assistant coach', FIFA declares

The decision, which football's world governing body called "groundbreaking," seeks to improve female respresentation at the highest levels of the sport, and will come in effect later this year with the U-17 and U-20 FIFA Women's World Cups and FIFA Women's Champions Cup.

"The FIFA Council has today approved groundbreaking regulations that will reshape the future of women’s football, mandating female representation in team leadership across all its women’s competitions," a FIFA statement read. "From this year onward, each team participating in FIFA women’s competitions, must include at least two female staff on the bench, and at least one female must be a head coach or assistant coach. This applies to all youth and senior tournaments, national team competitions, and club competitions."

Jill Ellis, FIFA’s chief football officer, stated that the new regulations will be combined with targeted development programmes to spur more investment in female coaches.

"There are simply not enough women in coaching today," Ellis said. "We must do more to accelerate change by creating clearer pathways, expanding opportunities, and increasing the visibility for women on our sidelines.”

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Ellis' words echoed those of a recent statement made by Gianni Infantino, who told the UEFA Congress in February that "we need to create job opportunities" for women in coaching as the game continues to grow at a rapid pace around the world.

"So, we should support, of course, more women in football positions and more women generally," the FIFA president said. "Maybe we need, actually, as well, 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 have seen it at the last (UEFA Women's) European Championship, the fantastic European Championship in Switzerland, how women's football is healthy, how women's football is growing.

"Next year, in less than 500 days, there will be a fantastic (FIFA Women's) World Cup, as well, in Brazil. And of course, I'm looking forward to seeing you all there."

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