In collaboration with Tottenham Hotspur and Nike, the Female Coaching Network (FCN) has launched a paid internship for women looking to break into coaching and provide a pathway into soccer. It is believed to be the first paid placement of its kind for female coaches in the game.

This fully-funded season-long internship is seen as a unique and innovative approach to address the lack of female coaches in the English Premier League and Women's Super League.

In position since last November, intern Danielle Boyd, has been placed within the women's academy at Tottenham Hotspur where she can be monitored by an array of the club's talented coaches. With Boyd being exposed to the club's talent pathway, it is hoped she will gain an experience like no other currently offered in the game.

Tottenham Hotspur Women are coached by Rehanne Skinner, who last season led Spurs to their highest-ever position of fifth in the Women's Super League. Prior to her appointment in November 2020, she herself spent two decades gaining coaching experience at all levels of the talent pathway and founded Leicester City Women. She served as Head Coach at Leicester City, Wales, and England at a variety of age-groups, eventually becoming the senior team’s assistant coach under Phil Neville.

Such a long-term committment has proved an insurmountable obstacle for aspiring female coaches in the women's game where contracts are generally shorter and less well compensated. By creating a paid coaching pathway for talented female coaches, this internship aims to break down the barriers which prevent women from accessing networks, education and opportunities in coaching pathways. In addition, the Female Coaching Network have committed to providing one-to-one coaching for the intern, facilitating their learning throughout and ensuring the coach reaches their maximum potential.

Speaking about the launch of the partnership, Skinner said "we are proud to be working alongside Female Coaching Network and Nike to deliver an invaluable learning experience for Danielle. As a Club, we want to lead by example and this innovative internship clearly identifies a need to support women in ways that haven’t been provided elsewhere."

"Over the years, I had to overcome so many barriers to reach the elite level that are still very much there today. Unfortunately, we’re not yet in a place where you gain respect from male peers being in the same setting, you are judged and challenged on your knowledge immediately because you are expected to not know instead of expected to know."

Founded in 2014 by Coaching Consultant Vicky Huyton and James Walkington, an advocate for gender equality in sport, the Female Coaching Network describes itself as 'The Leading Global Community of Female Coaches Who Support, Drive and Influence Real Change in Sport.'

Tottenham Hotspur are one of four clubs in the Women's Super League remaining to have a female head coach, along with Aston Villa, Chelsea and Reading. In fact, alongside Skinner, Spurs employ a female assistant coach, Vicky Jepson. This compares with last season, when half of the Women's Super League clubs were led by female head coaches.

Six of the last eight English league titles have been won by Chelsea who are coached by Emma Hayes, the 2021 winner of the title of The Best FIFA Women's Coach. In addition to this, four of the last five Women's World Cups, the last five Olympic Games and the last seven European Championship titles have been won by teams lead by female head coaches, a statistic at odds with a sport where the majority of national teams are still led by male coaches.

In October, the results of the English Football Association's (FA) Football Leadership Diversity Code revealed that just 40 of the 120 coaches hired in the women's game during the past year were female (33%), some way short of The FA's 50% target.

Speaking last month, the Arsenal Women's head coach Jonas Eidevall failed to understand why there were not more female coaches in the men's game. "You can have female Presidents but you can't have female coaches in the Premier League. Why? It has to be the single most under-tapped resource in professional football."

It is hoped that the FCN/UEFA B & Beyond Internship could soon be implemented at other clubs with the Cruyff Institute offering coaches and interns enrolled on the scheme discounts on a variety of coaching courses such as 'Football for Managers', 'Strategic Planning in Football' and 'Football Business Fundamentals'.

Co-founder of the Female Coaching Network, Huyton said "this is an incredible opportunity for us to create change in the world of elite football coaching. Female coaches don't have the same pathways available to them as their male peers, so it is essential that we work towards intentionally creating opportunities for them."

"A big thanks to Tottenham Hotspur and Nike for supporting this programme and for the hard work the intern herself has already displayed as she has been in place since November 2022."