Football | The women disappeared from the most important positions in their own series – now there are only men in their place

Football The national league starts today.

KuPS is aiming for its fourth consecutive championship. Among others, HJK, Åland United, FC Honka and HPS are going to challenge it.

In the women's domestic main series, men are in command. None of the ten teams in the series has a woman as their head coach, and the coaching teams are strongly dominated by men.

To top it all off, the women's A national team is again under a male coach.

Why has this situation been reached?

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“It can't always be the case that there is only the best choice, and it's always a man.”

Although the sample would be expanded to also cover the first team of ten teams, there would be only one female head coach: the head coach of Ilves' second team Move to the Mediterranean.

Even last season, the situation was even better in the league. Ex-goalkeeper Välimaa was the head coach of TPS for the rest of the season. Mari Savolainen was the head coach of HPS for two seasons before moving to KuPS ry's academy director.

Pauliina Miettinen on the other hand, he coached KuPS to become a double champion, but he and the club parted ways after the season in a contentious manner.

Miettinen has been working with the sport for a long time. He finds the current situation unfortunate.

“There should be a proper investigation into this, talking nonsense and expressing opinions is not enough.”

“When I've asked my own players about this, they've said that they don't want to do everything on football's terms, before, for example, family life and children,” says Miettinen.

Miettinen also sees it as important to get women into management positions anyway.

“It can't always be the case that there is only the best choice, and it's always a man. Then we would have failed badly in education and society.”

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“When the playing career ends, many people switch to better-paid civilian jobs instead of coaching positions.”

Former top player Essi Sainio ended his long career at the end of the 2022 season. He and Marianne Miettinen have become known to the general public also in value competitions as Yle's TV experts.

For a long time, Miettinen was the only Finnish woman with the highest level Uefa Pro license. Today, he works as the top football manager of the Finnish Football Association.

Miettinen and Sainio share a common view of the root causes of the problem. The salaries of players in women's football are still quite small.

“A very small percentage of the players earn so much that after their playing career they could live on it and think about what they would do here, or be a low-paid coach in the National League,” Miettinen describes.

“Several of our top international players study at a higher level of civilian education during their playing careers. When the playing career ends, many move to better-paid civilian jobs instead of coaching positions.”

At even lower levels, there are quite a lot of women in coaching positions. According to Miettinen, the bottleneck is formed when moving to the Uefa B level, where instead of the younger age groups, the focus starts on the top stage of the youth.

Like like many other footballers, Sainio attended his first coaching course towards the end of his playing career. He also had time to try coaching in addition to playing in many age groups.

However, coaching duties did not stop him, although at first he saw it as a possible future career.

“I personally see my strengths elsewhere than in coaching at the moment.”

“I've gotten a lot from football, but financially I haven't gotten terribly much from that direction. It can affect many people in such a way that they don't want to give their all again without getting the compensation they deserve,” Sainio describes.

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“As a rule, they are really good coaches.”

Paulina Miettinen points out that it is not just a matter of a lack of skilled workers. Domestic names with international experience, for example Rosa Lappi-Seppälä and Maiju Rootsalainen are currently out of team coaching.

Marianne Miettinen highlights KuPS. There, in addition to the previously mentioned Mari Savolainen Iita Pienimäki works as the second coach of the women's representative team and Elina Utriainen on the other hand, as the head coach of the academy team.

“There would be three women, all of whom could coach in the National League as head coaches based on their skills and licenses. They still play football for work, but have chosen other tasks rather.”

On the other hand, Sainio sees a bright side in the list of male coaches. He thinks that the National League's credibility in the eyes of coaches has grown.

“I hope it's because more and more men see it, for example, through the global growth of women's football, as an opportunity to create their own coaching career,” says Sainio.

“And when I look at these coaches who are in the National League now, they are generally very good coaches.”

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“It's a fantastic match.”

Marianne Miettinen says that the same problem is also being wrestled with in Sweden, for example, even though the local Damallsvenskan is significantly ahead of Finland in terms of resources.

There are many ways to improve the situation – some faster and more concrete, some more difficult structural and cultural changes.

Uefa and Fifa have distributed tens of thousands of euros in scholarship money to train female coaches. The Finnish Football Federation has organized a Uefa C course exclusively for women in order to lower the participation threshold.

“Many of them had a high civilian-level education, such as a master's degree in educational sciences or a master's degree in coaching and testing,” says Miettinen.

“If we get more guys like this, whose professional and educational background supports, for example, coaching children and young people, then that will be fantastic match.”