Like sports commentators who often hesitate, you may not know how to use this word in the feminine.
Like many professions, sport is becoming more feminine, and its own vocabulary must accompany its evolution. For some terms, you don’t have to look too far: a goalkeeper becomes a goalkeeper, a striker becomes an attacker and a midfielder remains a midfielder. But for other terms, the right way to grant is not so easy to know: “coach” and “defender” in particular.
For the term “coach”, the French Academy fortunately decided recently. In her Report on the feminization of professions and functions, she indicates: “the declination in -euse occurs when a verb corresponds to the noun (we thus have a tiler, a controller, a trainer, taken from the verbs to tile, to control , train)”. There is no doubt about it, the correct spelling is “a trainer”. It is also the one indicated in the Larousse and Le Robert dictionaries. It is therefore appropriate to ban, both orally and in writing, the use of the expressions “a coach” and “a coach”.
For the term “defender” on the other hand, the debate is a little more complex. And this firstly because it is also an important title in the field of law: the Defender of Rights, Defender of Children… In 2000, when Claire Brisset was appointed Defender of Children, the debate arose as to the spelling of this function for a woman. The spelling “defender” was eventually adopted over the years, to the point where it was no longer questioned; as for the current Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon, whose function is spelled as such.
In the field of sport, however, the answer is less obvious. If the absence of agreement seems an option definitively ruled out, the two feminine “defender” and “defender” are attested in Larousse and Le Robert. Both options are therefore valid and correct. The French Football Federation website uses the spelling “defenseure”.
The French Academy has not commented on this precise term, but if we follow the rule that it itself established, we should use only the term “défenseuse”: “the declension in -euse s’ operates when a verb corresponds to the noun. However, the common noun “defender” corresponds to a verb (“defend”). It is also the use of this agreement, “defender”, which is gaining momentum in recent years among sports commentators and in the media.