Approximately two-thirds of the UK sport coaching workforce are men. Within this figure, most coaches are also white, non-disabled, and higher-middle class. Diversity amongst our coaches is acutely low. As well as underrepresented, all groups of women have shorter coaching careers and they do not progress as fast or to higher levels in comparison to their male peers. In addition, there are less opportunities for them to seek secure coaching employment. Within the research literature, the experiences of women in sports coaching is a well-documented issue within the research literature. However, a remaining and sizeable knowledge gap within this body of research is a cultural perspective on this research problem. Existing research has also tended to view women’s experiences ‘statically’, examining the issues within women’s development as coaches at one point in their career, from one theoretical perspective and viewing women as a homogenous group.
What is also often absent is the consideration of the organisational contexts in which women coaches work and how such structures and practices create and shape experiences. Research that explicitly considers performance level, organisational cultures and that evaluates existing interventions to nurture more women coaches is rare within this subject area. What is also absent is an understanding of how a marginalised status and associated career experiences impact the well-being of women coaches. This is an important line of enquiry because occupational well-being is a critical factor in determining an individual’s commitment to, and continued participation in, a coaching career. Taking a multidisciplinary and mixed method approach to the issue of recruitment, retention, and progression of women football coaches represents an important step towards tackling these issues from a multilevel, comparative perspective.