GENEVA (AP) — All seven trophy-winning teams at the Women’s European Championship since 1997 were led to glory by a female coach.
The streak collectively by Sarina Wiegman, Silvia Neid and Tina Theune is even more impressive because they were always in the minority at Women’s Euros where most of the coaches were men.
It’s the same again at Euro 2025.
Nine men and seven women are working as head coaches in Switzerland this month. At Euro 2022 there were 10 men and six women.
That’s progress, but the majority is still a kind of mansplaining in women’s soccer.
UEFA managing director of women’s soccer Nadine Kessler — a playmaker for Germany on Neid’s champion team in 2013 — believes it should be better.
“It’s still not enough female coaches, but it’s the best edition we have so far,” Kessler told The Associated Press.
The seven women coaching at Euro 2025 include Gemma Grainger with Norway (and formerly Wales) and Pia Sundhage with Switzerland.
Hope for the future
“I hope that we’re standing here at Euro 2029 and the majority of coaches are female,” Grainger tells the AP. “I have no issue saying that whatsoever.”
“For me, the game should be about making sure the opportunities are there for female coaches but making sure that female coaches are at the right level to deliver.”
Sundhage is a storied veteran — a two-time Olympic champion with the United States — who has seen and heard it all about programs to develop and promote women coaches. She worked on such projects in Sweden and says she has been asked the question many times since.
“Football education is very expensive,” Sundhage says. “It’s not 100% sure that the club will pay for everything. You have to (pay) from your own pocket. That’s not the case on the men’s side.”
UEFA funds coaching scholarships and now mandates each Euro 2025 team “to play all matches under the direction of either a female head coach or a female assistant coach.”
“We try to proactively influence this,” Kessler says about the “Duties of the associations” clause in tournament rules.
Contrasting quotas
Still, one of the most respected men coaching in European women’s soccer calls this quota “very strange” — because UEFA does not also require men’s national teams to hire a female coach.
“Why didn’t they say the same to the male side? Just for the women’s soccer?” Sweden coach Peter Gerhardsson says when asked by the AP about gender equality at the Women’s Euros. “That’s one point.”
Sundhage agrees: “I believe men and women (coaching) together will be the best solution. I think it’s a waste of knowledge because we don’t give the women the chance.”
Denmark has never had a female coach though its coach Andrée Jeglertz insists the quality is there.
“Definitely I am sure that one of those some day will be head coach of this team,” says Jeglertz, who will be replaced by another man when he joins Manchester City after the tournament. “But if it’s in a couple of years or 10, I don’t know.”
UEFA’s Kessler acknowledges “the women’s game is now so attractive (to men). To educate coaches is one thing, but to have an opportunity is another thing.”
Representation of women in the dugout is at least better than in the boardrooms.
Just three of UEFA’s 55 member federations have an elected woman leader: Lise Klaveness at Norway, Debbie Hewitt at England and Pascal van Damme at Belgium.
At UEFA itself, the 20-member executive committee includes two women: Klaveness, who joined in April, and Laura McAllister of Wales, who is a UEFA vice president. Both were elected in quota seats protected for women.
Norway, England, Belgium and Wales are playing at Euro 2025 and all four teams are coached by a woman.
Hiring the best available
Though that looks significant, Klaveness reveals she would have approved appointing another man to coach the Norway women she played for 73 times had the best candidate been a him.
“Of course we will hire the most competent, and if it was a man then it was a man,” she tells the AP.
The key, however, was Klaveness — a judge with expertise in employment law — insisting at least three female candidates be heard.
“I think it brings a bit more openness when you come from the minority side,” she says. “I am sure that England is very satisfied with Sarina, we are very satisfied with Gemma. We have found the best ones.”
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
