IT is still nowhere near smashed but this week, another crack appeared in the glass ceiling. Jen Welter was appointed as a coach of the Arizona Cardinals, becoming the first female ever to hold such a position in the NFL. At 37, Welter has been hired as a linebacker coach for pre-season in what is a hugely significant step for women in sport.

When Andy Murray hired Amelie Mauresmo as his coach last year, there was such an outcry from some that you could be forgiven for thinking that he had hired a glove puppet in his attempt to add to his tally of grand slam titles. Encouragingly, the reaction to Welter’s appointment appears to be, so far at least, almost exclusively positive.

So it should be; Welter is supremely qualified for the role – she was a professional American football player for 14 seasons, she was the first female player to play a non-kicking position in a men’s professional league, she became the first woman to coach in a men’s professional league when she worked with Texas Revolution last season and she also has a masters degree in sports psychology. So it’s safe to say that she knows what she is talking about when it comes to football.

Yet her qualifications, by no means, guaranteed her a job. American football, as with all four of the States' major sports, was designed by men, for men. Sexism is prevalent in the NFL – from the previous defences of players accused of sexual assault to the omni-presence of cheerleaders who are included in lists of the ‘NFL’s Hottest Cheerleading Squads”.

So the Arizona Cardinals coach, Bruce Arians, should be widely applauded for taking the step of appointing Welter. “I wanted to open that door,” Arians said. “Coaching is nothing more than teaching. The one thing I’ve learned from players is all they want to know is: ‘How are you going to make me better? If you can make me better then I don’t care if you’re the Green Hornet, I’ll listen.”

Arians said that he had talked to several of his senior players and they were “cool” with the decision, adding that Welter’s appointment would “not be a distraction in any way”. That Arians felt that he had to reassure any potential dissenters that Welter would not be a distraction is disappointing. Firstly, his comment is doing something of a disservice to his players because the assumption is that if a woman is merely present at a Cardinals training session, their focus will be disrupted. Secondly, there never seems to be the need to give this kind of public reassurance when a man is appointed as coach of a women’s team. When Scott Booth became the new coach of Glasgow City earlier this month, there was no clamour telling fans not to worry, the players would not be distracted by his presence. Because of course they won’t be – they are professional athletes who are capable of doing their job without being distracted the minute someone of the opposite sex walks in the door.

Welter is not oblivious to the significance of her appointment. When she was presented to the media, she said, “I didn’t even dream that it was possible. And I think the beauty of this is that although it’s a dream I never had, now it’s a dream that other girls can have. I guess if that makes me a trailblazer, then I’m honoured.”

She is so right; in one fell swoop, Arizona Cardinals have shown every young girl in America, and across the world, that they can have a career in the sport. What Welter’s appointment also shows is that America is light years ahead of Britain when it comes to promoting equality within the sporting sphere. The NBA also has a full-time female coach – Becky Hammon is assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs.

Shelley Kerr may have become the first female to manage a British senior men’s side when she joined University of Stirling last year but seeing a female managing an SPFL or English Premier League side still seems a long way off. The highest profile female working in the hands-on, performance side of a football club is Chelsea first-team doctor, Eva Carneiro. During matches earlier this year, as Carneiro ran down the touchline, she was subjected to horrific sexist chanting and abuse. This, of course, does not mean that every football fan in Britain is sexist, but it does hint that a female manager would be the target of similar abuse, if not even more so, which is likely to discourage club owners from taking the plunge and being the first club to appoint a female manager.

That Welter’s appointment has been so newsworthy shows how far there is still to go before equality in sport can be taken for granted but the last few years have seen significant progress made. In the past, a female NFL coach would have been unthinkable – and that’s the real beauty of Welter’s appointment, it shows that, slowly but surely, we’re getting there.