There’s a new path to coaching in women’s football: the FA’s all-female A Licence course. The course, which launches in May 2024, forms part of a partnership with the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) to help address gender imbalances in spaces available for coaching. The list includes 17 players who currently or formerly play in Women’s Super League (WSL), including icons of the game Steph Houghton, Vivianne Miedema and Izzy Christiansen, all who are pedaling madly along in the pursuit of qualifying degrees to become coaches in the future.
This innovative course keeps talented female footballers involved in the game once their playing career finishes, held at St George’s Park. The participants are getting the practical coaching and the theoretical learning blended together which helps them get a better understanding of the intricacies of Coaching. For Houghton, who retired in 2023, it is an exciting new challenge for former players like him and that’s good. She admits she’s really enjoyed it; switching the role of player to coach so quickly. ‘This course is me challenging myself and I’ve always wanted to do that.’
The course is meant to teach people to become coaches rather than to be a carbon copy of others. But Houghton treats it like clay: ‘I am figuring out what I really, really like about it,’ she says, and what she thinks she wants to create as a coach. We are teaching them the essential skills needed for their future careers in psychology, sports science and session planning. Lisa Evans, a City player now, admits the course is eye opening: “I don’t think players appreciate the amount of work that goes on, the prep work that goes on behind the scenes so that everything is perfect.”
The course is also part of efforts to redress gender balancing between coaches and many senior roles, says Steve Guinan, FA senior player to coach lead. “But we also want to have more female head coaches in the WSL and even in the men’s game,” he adds, in reference to the lack of women presence in football’s technical areas.
These 17 players are making this course and the lessons to come all that same powerful example to Generation following for the women who may aspire to lead on the sidelines from this point forward. Reading between the lines, the course also does a lot for supporting their personal growth, but not without contributing to completely changing the way coaching will progress in women’s football.