Overview
- Each team must have at least one woman serving as head coach or assistant coach and at least two female staff on the bench at FIFA women’s events.
- The regulation spans all women’s competitions run by FIFA at youth and senior levels for both national teams and clubs, starting with this year’s U-17 and U-20 World Cups and the Women’s Champions Cup and applying to the 2027 World Cup in Brazil.
- Several outlets report the new framework also requires at least one woman on each team’s medical staff, in addition to the bench quotas.
- FIFA cites underrepresentation as the rationale, noting 12 of 32 head coaches at the 2023 Women’s World Cup were women and reporting 5% female coaches across member associations and 22% female head coaches across 86 women’s leagues.
- The mandate is paired with scholarships, mentorships and other support—FIFA says it will assist teams struggling to comply and will embed the rule in participation agreements—while detailed monitoring and penalties have yet to be set out.