The University of Essex and Birmingham City University have joined eight existing universities, which are partnered with England Football Learning, to offer support for women’s and girls’ football coaches at specialist Women’s High Performance Football Centres [WHPFC] across the country.
The centres provide an educational and community-based hub to recruit, develop and deploy coaches and the wider workforce to lead and inspire player development within the women’s and girls’ game. They will further provide a link with the player pathway to help talented players, who will benefit from coaching, sports science, sports medicine and scholarship opportunities in an academic and community environment.
The addition of Essex and Birmingham City University is part of The FA’s ongoing commitment to develop coaches within women’s and girls’ football. The existing eight universities have renewed their partnership to continue operating Women’s High Performance Football Centres until July 2024
- Northumbria University
- Manchester Metropolitan University
- Nottingham Trent University & University of Nottingham
- Sheffield Hallam University
- University of Gloucestershire
- Plymouth Marjon University
- St Mary’s University
- University of Chichester
In these areas, clubs from across the football pyramid and women’s football academies will benefit from the partnership by the recruitment of coaches, and the wider workforce, with the Universities providing a wide range of student placements from strength and conditioning, sport therapy, performance analysis, marketing, media and business management.
FA Women’s Pathway Coach Developer Lead, Abbie Sadler commented: “It’s brilliant to add two new partners to our Women’s High Performance Football Centres offering at universities. The opportunities the programme creates will be invaluable to coaches and the wider workforce wanting to take their next steps in women’s football.
“We are also thrilled to have also extended our partnership with all the universities we work with for another two years and cannot wait to continue the great work in the women’s and girls’ game.
“With 10 centres across the country, there’s real depth and breadth to the programme and opportunities for coaches nationwide.”
Dr Dave Parry, Director of Sport at the University of Essex said: “We are delighted to have been selected by The FA and England Football Learning to be one of their Women’s High Performance Football Centres.
“The success of the Lionesses at the UEFA Women’s Euros has inspired the whole country, and there really couldn’t be a better time to be part of the next phase of growing the women’s and girls’ game and developing coaches and support staff.”
On the renewal, Phil Cook, Head of Development at Manchester Metropolitan University added: “We are excited to enter our sixth year of the project and are delighted to be one of ten universities nationally with a WHPFC. One area of growth has been the Women’s Goalkeepers Centre hosted at our Platt Lane Sports Complex where over 40 goalkeepers now train whilst being supported by FA accredited coaches and student volunteers.
Our existing partnership with Manchester City Football Club has already opened up a number of exciting opportunities for our students, coaches and community, and we hope this new extension to our partnership will take the development of the women’s game to an even higher level.”
For further information on the Women’s High Performance Football Centres, please follow this link.
