Arsenal Women boss Jonas Eidevall says that the lack of female coaches across football- men’s and women’s- remains a source of bafflement to him.
Ahead of Sunday’s WSL clash away at Brighton, the Swede was asked about the WSL only having four female head coaches. Eidevall insisted gender disparity in coaching was not just an issue for women’s football.
“I think the question is wrong. It’s not the WSL that is the problem. The problem is that in all the technical staff and all the professional clubs on the men’s side, how many technical female staff do you have in the men’s game?
“It’s incredible that in all other parts of society, we have female Prime Ministers, female Presidents, but you can’t have a female coach in the Premier League for some reason? Why?
“I think it has to be the single most undertapped resource in professional football is female coaches. There is no reason why you can be female and not be a top coach.”
Current France Feminine boss Corrine Diacre became the first woman to be the Head Coach of a professional men’s team when she took the reins at Clermont Foot in her home country between 2014 and 2017.
Other than that, the number of female coaches in the men’s game has been sparse and women’s football is also dominated by male coaches and Eidevall says he is confused about why more action has not been taken to amend this disparity.
“You are absolutely right with the numbers, it is a big problem, that there are not more female coaches. But that isn’t the WSL in isolation, that’s the whole game.
“I can’t get my head around how that is possible that nothing happens and people are very content that nothing is happening.”
mans got to be trollin 🤣🤣🤣
Why? Why can’t a woman manage Arsenal men’s team one day?
Why’s man got to be trollin? 🤔 Man can’t be serious or you won’t take man serious?
I mean, as a male coach in a female sport, the comment is a bit interesting, no? 😅
Why? Are you suggesting that only victims of systemic prejudice can spot it and talk about it?
What a problem…. I think the gender is totally indifferent. I can accept a wonder woman coach slapping Mourinho in the face at the end of the match.
No woman is ready to be a PL manager at the present time. It is simple as that. Henry and plenty of former players are still far from it. Lampard and Gerard are struggling to keep a position. Jonas is perhaps trying to deflect why he is in a position suitable for former female players.
But that’s the point, why is there no woman ready? When will it happen? You are acknowledging that there are obstacles, that’s what the last part of the quote is about, why are no efforts being made to remove those obstacles?
Why does he sound so confused? There are more males than females who are interested in becoming football coaches. Nothing to do with their potential competence, just a matter of different interests. There are exceptions of course. But it’s fine, women have other great jobs too outside of football.
I will try not to be too patronising here because this comment is….I’ll stop there. But even relatively speaking to the comparative interest in football between men and women, there are 0 female coaches in the top four divisions of men’s football. For your contention to be accurate, there would have to be 0 women interested in football. It’s genuinely unbelievable that your brain couldn’t get to that logic unassisted (sorry, I broke my promise…)
Tim, thank you for your thoughtful and spot on replies here. But also, after reading this article I immediately intended to comment here how immensely proud it made me to see Jonas, our coach and so Arsenal, say something so powerful, absolutely correct, and simultaneously simple and obvious, but still not nearly acknowledged and spoken about enough (if at all?)!
There is so much to make Gunners proud and happy these days, these comments by our coach instantly go to my top few reasons!
Well said, Jonas. It doesn’t make sense that there are so few female coaches in the women’s top game, let alone the men’s game, given the number of ex-players there are. So it’s a good point to raise.
Back in the stone age we thought that you had to be big and strong to be police or a firefighter. Men are better at being big and strong so only they could be police or a firefighter but now we know that being big and strong is useful but that there are other skills the are also useful, in fact some of them are more important in those jobs than being big and strong and to have an agile and diverse skill set you need a diverse workforce and omg that means you need women. Perhaps they might not… Read more »