‘Male coaches get away with a lot more on the sideline than I do'

The 42

a day ago

SOME 136 PEOPLE have obtained their Uefa Pro Licence with the Football Association of Ireland since the course's inception in 2009.
Of that number, three are women.
Sue Ronan and Eileen Gleeson have both had stints managing the Irish national team, while Laura Heffernan is the current head coach of DLR Waves.
Heffernan is the most recent graduate. Her 2024 course included former Ireland internationals Paul McShane, David Meyler, Sean St Ledger and Glenn Whelan, as well as Waterford Women's manager Gary Hunt and Bohemians men's assistant boss Stephen O'Donnell.
Last December, when expressions of interest for the 2025/26 Uefa Pro Licence were sought, a press release noted: '136 coaches have completed the Uefa Pro Licence through FAI Coach Education and currently, 94 of those coaches are active within the game.'
That 94 figure includes Heffernan, who was appointed manager of DLR Waves just over two years ago.
But 'active within the game' does not necessarily constitute employment in the football industry.
Instead, Heffernan is a full-time sales representative and administrator with Balon Sportswear.
The Wexford native has been involved in senior football in Ireland for 27 years and first became a manager, with Wexford Youths, in 2017.
On balancing the two, Heffernan says: 'It's quite hectic from January to October, it's a lot of hours, and not a lot of free time during that period. So, it can be a bit exhausting, but I suppose it's just the nature of where we are at the moment in women's football in Ireland; the industry just isn't there. And it's quite difficult to put work aside for a full commitment to football.'
Heffernan, who turns 41 this year, works from her home in Wexford, and in the evening makes the trip up to Beckett Park three times a week for training, and then travels again for matches at the weekend.
'It's probably an hour, 20, up and back,' she says of the journey to Cherrywood.
'It is quite a big commitment, but not as bad as Northside with Shelbourne [Heffernan had a stint coaching the Reds' underage team]. So it seems a lot closer when you've done that journey for three years.'
While it is far from ideal for a pro licence holder managing in the top division in the country, Heffernan understands it is the reality of working in women's football in Ireland.
When asked whether there would ever come a point where she might become fed up with the lack of resources and limitations, and end her involvement in sport, she responds: 'I've said that at the start of every season for the last 10 years.
'But it's a labour of love. And that's whether you're a coach or a player. And I see the girls, we do three pitch sessions a week. We have our game at the weekend. They're doing their extra one-to-ones or gym sessions on the alternate days, they're getting up at six, seven o'clock in the morning to go to college, leaving college, to come straight to training, and home late and up early the next morning. And that's 10 months of the year.
'And they're giving up their Saturdays to travel all over the country, and they get practically nothing to do it so, you have to wonder how much more we can push all these players and how much more we can ask from them when, on top of that, they're probably trying to fit in part-time jobs just to make ends meet.
'And so we have to seriously start asking the questions of how much more we can professionalise the game and keep pushing these players if we don't have anything to offer them.'
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It has been a difficult start to the season for DLR Waves. Leah Scholes / INPHO Leah Scholes / INPHO / INPHO
The fact that DLR Waves are rooted to the bottom of the Women's Premier Division with four points from 11 games does not make it any easier.
'The reality is we're working off a budget that's probably a quarter of the teams in the top half of the table. So it's always going to be difficult, the other side of that is when you look at the names of the clubs, sometimes it's hard to attract players when you're competing against the clubs in Dublin with those big names, players will always tend to veer towards the Shamrock Rovers or Shelbournes.'
Despite the disappointing results of late, Heffernan says progress has been made at the club as a whole in recent times, pointing to success at underage level and the development of their academy, with the promotion of young footballers key to DLR Waves' strategy.
Keeping hold of players is a recurring issue, however. Heffernan recalls a particularly challenging season in 2023, the year she was appointed manager.
'We lost 15 of the squad of 20 or something like that. It was pretty colossal. So when I took the job, it was a lot of trying to stabilise what was there.'
Heffernan is one of only two female managers in the Women's Premier Division — the other being Peamount's Emma Donoghue.
She acknowledges that the lack of Irish female representatives in coaching is not ideal.
'I still think there is a level of or a lack of respect there at times,' she says.
'Even in terms of games, I think some of the male coaches get away with a lot more on the sideline than I do.
'And I think there is an in-between, of course. A lot of the guys in the league this year are really good guys. I have a really good relationship with a lot of the coaches.
'But it hasn't always been that way over the years either, and I do still think there is a lack of respect there for female coaches, and it's something that we just have to keep pushing and trying to change.
'You have to have a bit of a hard skin at times, and let some things brush off and not let it affect you.'
Asked to elaborate on her point about sideline behaviour, Heffernan adds: 'A lot of the time, the lads can be fairly animated and get away with saying certain things to officials and whatnot. And I find a lot of the time that if I question something, it's not taken as seriously. That's just the way it is.
'And I think with the lads, especially anyone who has played in the League of Ireland or whatever, they just seem to get a lot more respect. And that's been the way for many years.
'I don't know how you change that, other than just keep trying to do what we're doing and keep plugging away and doing the job — the easy thing to do, I suppose, would be just to walk away.
'I've openly spoken about some courses that I didn't feel overly comfortable on. I've had the same situation as a lot of other female coaches that I've spoken about, where you're asked if you're the physio when you arrive at the games and things like that — a few years back, not as much now.'
Then-Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni speaks to coaches as part of their Pro Licence in 2012. Donall Farmer / INPHO Donall Farmer / INPHO / INPHO
Heffernan does not regret undertaking the Uefa Pro Licence course. It has at least raised her profile in the game and means she is less likely to get mistaken for the physio. She also speaks highly of the people running it, describing the experience as 'one of the most enjoyable things that I've ever done'.
But at the same time, the opportunities she has been afforded since then do not seem significantly greater — she took over the head coach role at DLR Waves before graduating.
'As proud as I am to have the pro licence, I would still say, for me, it probably doesn't hold as much weight to other people as what any of the lads that got it, it doesn't hold the same kind of perception, than if one of the males who have their pro licence have, so it can be a challenge, it can be difficult, but it's something that we buy into, and we're wanting to change.'
She continues: 'I do genuinely feel that it doesn't hold as much weight as it would for the other 19 candidates that were in the room at the time.
'As great as it is to have, I'm not sure right now where we are with women's football in this country, it's changed opportunities here within Ireland.'
Even for male coaches, having a pro licence is far from a guarantee of full-time employment, while being without one is not necessarily an impediment.
Irish national team manager Carla Ward and Joey O'Brien, who has just been appointed Shelbourne's permanent manager, are among those without one, though the latter has confirmed he is enrolled on the 2025-26 course, which begins later this year, and Ward is also working towards gaining one.
Given this state of affairs, it seems understandable why many women would be reluctant to pursue the pro licence.
'There are a lot of female coaches who are working full time. They've got kids. They're juggling everyday life. It's not as easy to give up your time to go on and commit to something like that, because it's 18 months of really, really hard work. Obviously, there's a cost involved as well.
'The problem is the football industry for women is just not here at the moment, and for the time and investment that goes into getting to that point, there are practically no full-time jobs available to make use of it.
'And so I can understand why a lot of females, especially, don't put that final bit of commitment in to go and finish the A licence or the B or the pro licence, because there's very little that you can do when you come out of it that's going to pay to be a football coach.'
Regardless of whether they have a pro licence, Heffernan believes 'we're still quite a bit off' appointing female coaches to top jobs in the men's game and says she 'wouldn't begrudge any of the lads working in the Premier Division,' adding: 'A lot of them are ex-players that have come through, and they've given their time, and they've helped build the league to where it is for probably a lot less than what the players are on now.
'I suppose the thing for me is, if you flip it to the women's game, I'd be under no illusions that if somebody with an A licence or a B licence male was to apply for a job in the women's game, the chances are they probably would get it before I would.'
Former Ireland boss Eileen Gleeson is one of three women to secure a Uefa Pro Licence through the FAI course. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
In addition to her application, Heffernan had to come through two 'intense' interviews to gain one of the 20 spots on the 2024 course.
As well as the low number of places available and the fact that courses only take place every two years, another prohibitive factor is the cost. The FAI have been reluctant to publicly disclose the fee for taking the course, but the equivalent FA-run course in England is listed as £13,700, and that only accounts for the pro licence.
Such figures are pocket money for a recently retired footballer who has played in the Premier League, but it is a substantial sum for people like Heffernan who have devoted their careers to the far less lucrative women's game.
'I don't think we're the most expensive,' she says. 'I don't think we're the cheapest either across Europe. It does vary from country to country.
'But it is a big investment, from your first badge to your last badge, when the employment opportunities aren't where we'd like them to be.'
Still, though, while football may not have made her rich, Heffernan has no regrets about the life she has pursued.
'As many challenges as I faced over the last 10 years, I wouldn't change a day of it. As much as there have been hard sides to it, I've had some unbelievable experiences through football, whether that's been travelling away to Champions League [games] or winning titles. And some of those are days that you remember for the rest of your life.'