There is not a single female head coach in the National Football League, i.e. the women’s premier league, this season. Also, there is currently no female head coach in the women’s First Division or the national teams.
The top football manager of the Swedish Football Association Marianne Miettinen according to the reasons are deep in the structures. When a female soccer player ends her playing career, she typically moves on to well-paid jobs that match her education.
Only a few aim to become a top coach. Low-paying and uncertain coaching jobs are not attractive after a playing career, but coaching may remain a hobby alongside civilian work.
Women rarely earn as much as men in a football career. There are no savings from playing, even if you play abroad as a professional. Many female soccer players, for example, study at a university in addition to their playing career.
– We need to make the operation professional. You can act professionally even if it’s not your job. We need to create attractive careers and attractive jobs, says Marianne Miettinen.
The goalkeeper of the Helsinki Ball Club Iina Rautiainen considers it a pity that there are no female coaches in the National League. He coached HPS last season Mari Savolainenwho moved to KuPS academy director last season.
Rautiainen also believes that training for other professions in addition to a playing career is one big reason why there are no female head coaches in the league this year.
– There are many in our team who are studying at a university. It’s difficult to become a coach, where the competition with men is really tough and the rewards are not necessarily as good as in civilian life, Rautiainen says.
In previous seasons too, there have been only a few female head coaches. In addition to Savolainen, he was the head coach last season Pauliina Miettinenwho transferred to KuPS in the middle of the season and piloted it to the Finnish champion.
Coach like a woman project worker Name Erdoğan According to Suomen Valmentajat ry has implemented the Coaching as a Woman project for over ten years with the support of the Ministry of Education and Culture.
– It easily happens that when there is one woman as a coach in a sport, the illusion arises that we have women as coaches, says Erdoğan.
Sweden, which has a reputation as a model country for football equality, does not have a female head coach in the women’s premier league. Only one female coach has so-called shared head coaching responsibility in Damallsvenskan.
– It doesn’t look good, but it doesn’t look good in Sweden either. England is leading the way here. There are currently five women as head coaches in the Superliiga (women’s premier league), says Miettinen.
Get rid of unconscious attitudes
It has been established in the Finnish Coaches Association that there are few top female coaches in sports other than football as well. According to Sanna Erdoğan, there are factors that are still slowing down the progress of women to become top coaches.
– They may not be encouraged to advance or they may not be offered educational support, for example. It is important that the coaches get to show their skills on the field. Education is not considered as valuable as the experience gained from practical coaching, says Sanna Erdoğan.
45 percent of the female coaches who took part in the soon-to-be-published study conducted by the Finnish Coaches Association and the University of Jyväskylä feel that the structures favoring men have slowed down or hindered their ability to coach.
– It can still be said that, unfortunately, women in top coaching positions at the top level seem to be very rare in Finland, says Erdoğan.
According to Erdoğan, the majority of people in decision-making positions in sports organizations are men. Since it is natural for people to look at things from their own point of view, unconscious attitudes can appear in recruitments and the position of marginalized people, such as women, cannot be considered.
– More open recruitment processes would be needed. Maybe you’re used to having a man as the head coach. The image of a coach is based on a masculine, perhaps decisive and authoritarian model. It is not necessarily conscious, but is done as it has been done before, says Erdoğan.
– In addition, the positions of top coaches are quite few and there is a fierce battle for them.
There are no applications for higher education levels
Marianne Miettinen believes that in the next few years there will be more women in head coaching positions.
– Actually, only in recent years have we been able to train a lot of female coaches with the help of Uefa scholarships and there have been several women who have taken the Uefa A course. I believe that in a few years this mass will begin to be oriented towards the head coaching positions of the National League, says Marianne Miettinen.
In the national league, a Uefa A coaching license is required for the head coach. In Finland, more than twenty women had completed it by the end of 2023, while there were almost 500 men who had completed it.
This year, there is not a single woman in the Uefa A course, said Mari Savolainen, who received the highest level, Uefa Pro license in February, in the X message service. Before her, four Finnish women had completed the Pro license: Marianne Miettinen, Maiju Rootsalainen, Caroline Sjöblom and Rosa Lappi-Seppälä. Sjöblom from Åland has completed his Pro course in Sweden.
Both Palloliitto and Suomen Menmentajat have invested in supporting the career paths of female coaches for a long time. Mentoring and training support have had positive effects, but there is still a lot of work to do in the future.
– We have a bottleneck that there are a lot of women on the courses at the lower levels of education, but when we go to the higher levels, they no longer apply for the B course. We have to support that mass, that they feel they are ready and are brave to advance in training. This will open up opportunities for higher coaching levels as well, Miettinen estimates.
According to UEFA rules, every girls’ and women’s national team must have at least one woman in the coaching team. Because Palloliitto tries to support the development of female coaches, and according to Miettinen, potential coaching talent is on the rise.
– The responsibility does not lie only with the Football Association. I am announcing that the clubs must also take their own measures. When you know that there are players who are about to quit or research their backgrounds, you’re sure to find some excellent guys out there. You have to ask them to join and support them, says Miettinen.