Belinda Wilson on FIFA’s Women's Football Division

Belinda Wilson was a member of FIFA’s Technical Study Group at the last Women’s World Cup, and she was delighted to see the positive impact that tournament made on the football landscape. However, as Senior Technical Development Manager within FIFA’s Women’s Division, she is well aware that plenty more work is required to develop the women’s game. In this interview, she reveals what FIFA is doing to support that work around the world.

00:07
How Wilson fell in love with coaching
Wilson’s journey into coaching was complicated by the fact she had no opportunity to play youth football beyond the age of 12. She got back into the game by coaching her younger brother as a 15-year-old, then trained as a paramedic. Shortly before completing that training, she was recruited by New South Wales Soccer as Female Participation Officer, a role that proved her gateway into football administration. As she moved through the ranks at the AFC, she continued to coach on a voluntary basis, thus gaining an unusually thorough understanding of how football works both on and off the pitch.

02:13
The aims of FIFA’s Women’s Division
Wilson’s hands-on role within FIFA’s Women’s Division puts her at the forefront of efforts to nurture women’s football across the globe. As she explains, the main focus of the Division’s work is to deliver FIFA’s Global Women’s Football Strategy. That strategy is composed of five individual pillars, and Wilson is personally involved in two of them. Each pillar is in turn associated with specific actions, and FIFA’s Women's Football Development Department is making a determined and committed effort to implement them within member associations and across football as a whole.

03:01
The Coach Mentorship Programme
Wilson is also involved in FIFA’s Coach Mentorship Programme, which pairs 20 coaches with 20 mentees from all over the world. Rather than teach technical details (something the participants can discuss in one-to-one meetings), the scheme looks to create a community that can empower young coaches and provide advice as challenges arise. It also aims to instil a mindset in those coaches that will help them to thrive at the top of the game, and to encourage mentees to come up with creative coaching solutions tailored to the women’s game.

04:57
Other ways of supporting the women’s game
This is not the only FIFA initiative designed to support women’s football. As a coach, Wilson has first-hand experience of the financial difficulties faced by many aspiring female coaches. Making a living from coaching can be difficult, and funding from the FIFA Coach Education Scholarship Programme can help. FIFA is also making a sustained investment in order to create integrated pathways from the grassroots to the elite level of the game for coaches, players and referees alike. Of course, different associations have different needs, and FIFA is open to finding individual solutions where required.

06:58
Challenges facing the women’s game
Wilson identifies the lack of development pathways for female coaches and players as a big global issue, along with the difficulties women face in accessing development opportunities within national associations. Women’s football is professionalising rapidly, but female coaches are struggling to find jobs in this newly professionalised environment, and that situation will not improve unless they are given opportunities to develop their skills. Specific regions also face their own unique challenges: as Wilson points out, coordinating development work at a national level in her native Australia (which has a land area the size of Europe) can be a Herculean endeavour.