‘I didn’t know girls could coach football that well’: the experiences of female football coaches in the South East of England

Abstract

Although women’s football has seen a significant growth of participation in recent years, this has not reflected in the number of female coaches. In this semi-structured interview research, we examine 10 female football coaches’ experiences in the South East of England. Our findings document three central findings: (1) participants were motivated to pursue a coaching career either due to a love of football, an alternative to a playing career, or were inspired by a recent increase of female role models in the game; (2) the institutional support networks (i.e. those established by the game’s governing body, the Football Association) were inadequate, forcing them to seek support from elsewhere, such as their family; and (3) consistent with previous research, all participants in this research had encountered some form of sexism in their coaching careers. Accordingly, this article contributes to a growing body of research centered on female coaches’ experiences of football.

Keywords:

• Football
• coaching
• sexism
• discrimination
• support
• role models

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank each of the 10 coaches that agreed to be interviewed for this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.