WHAT a year this promises to be for Scottish women’s football. Qualification for Euro 2017 means the sport can no longer be marginalised.
An ambitious six-month preparation for the national team gets under way in Cyprus this month, with friendlies against Denmark on January 20 and 23. Then it is back to the Mediterranean Island for the annual Cyprus Cup tournament at the beginning of March, with Scotland’s group also containing Austria, North Korea and New Zealand.
And so it continues. Anna Signeul intends to make full use of every available international window, and an announcement is expected soon on an initiative to ease the workloads of those players who are holding down full-time day jobs.
By the time Scotland play England in the mouth-watering opening Group D game in Utrecht on July 19, no squad in the nation’s mediocre major championship history will have had such an intensive build-up.
The games against England, Portugal and Spain also offer the opportunity, if the side play to their full potential, for the players to make Scottish history by qualifying for the knock-out stages.
THE much higher profile will, almost certainly, lead to a sharp rise in the number of girls wanting to play football. That is both an opportunity and a challenge for the clubs.
The good news is that Scottish Women’s Football are making changes which should lead to more money in the domestic game and improve its governance. Susie Fraser, who was employed as a part-time consultant in 2016, has already been appointed chief commercial officer, and interviews for two further posts will be conducted this month.
One is for an executive officer – somebody with a background in football who will focus on development. The other is for an administrator.
At the top end of the game the prize money for the SSE Women’s Cup will start from the quarter-finals this year. And the League Cup final, previously ludicrously scheduled for midweek evenings, will be staged on a Sunday.
There could be even better news on the horizon as SWF are in discussions with a possible league sponsor.
CELTIC have made another significant signing, bringing in Sarah Ewens from Hibernian. Like Sarah Crilly, who joined from Glasgow City, she wasn’t an automatic first-team pick at Hibs, but Celtic have again weakened the squad of one of their title rivals while strength-ening their own.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here