A NEW direction for Scottish women's football now seems inevitable – and ironically it won't involve Scottish Women's Football.

Barring a last minute change of heart, the top ten clubs will tell SWF this week that, from next season, they are moving to a new subsidiary model run by the SPFL. There will also be an opportunity for the SWPL 2 clubs to join the new organisation as a two tier structure is now the preferred option.

All the clubs have to do to implement the change is tell SWF they won't be affiliating next season. No vote is required, and the Scottish FA will recognise the new top league as being the one which qualifies teams for the Champions League.

For all the reservations about the SPFL – and there are many – the organisation run by Neil Doncaster has been very proactive in the discussions over a new direction. SWF, by contrast, have come across as being reactive and seemed not to recognise that a majority of clubs wanted to know what alternative structure was on offer sooner rather than later.

My understanding is that the clubs most likely to give SWF every opportunity to retain control, including Spartans, Aberdeen and Partick Thistle, contrasted the two approaches and concluded the SPFL was the better future option. Glasgow City, the only stand-alone women's club in the top ten, will go with the flow.

The clubs will have representatives on the new board and the priority in the short term will be to ensure the subsidiary company is going to operate entirely in the interests of all concerned. Clubs will have representatives on the board and it is essential a culture is established which is very different to the toxic tribalism which will always hold back Scottish men's professional football.

PEDRO Martinez Losa will name his squad for the Pinatar Cup on Tuesday, but the head coach has lost out on the opportunity to look at a Scottish-qualified goalkeeper. Washington Spirit No 2 Devon Kerr has instead opted to stay with her native Canada.

Kerr is 5ft 11in tall and Everton goalkeeping coach Ian McCaldon is a huge fan. “She has all the qualities you want for an international goalkeeper,” McCaldon, who worked with the player during his three year spell at the top American club, said.

“Devon would walk into any FA WSL side. She has excellent movement and athleticism, kicks the ball with both feet, and dominates the goal area with her presence.”

The 24-year-old is club deputy to Aubrey Bledsoe, who McCaldon also coached. Bledsoe, who is six years older, is an outstanding goalkeeper who has been voted best in the NWSL for the last two full seasons.

Martinez Losa had hoped to see Kerr train at close quarters in Murcia but the player – who has a Scottish grandfather – has now declined. Whether by coincidence or not, it appears she will be called up by Olympic champions Canada for the first time when their squad is announced for this month's Arnold Clark Cup in England.

WOMEN played a huge part in Raith Rovers' humiliating climbdown on Thursday morning. The Fife club finally read the room and decided they couldn't employ David Goodwillie.

Crime writer and club sponsor Val McDermid led the charge and was quickly joined by the women's team captain, Tyler Rattray. It's not every day a lower league footballer gets 16,000 “likes” for a social media post – as Rattray did for her principled announcement that she was relinquishing the armband and leaving the club.

McDermid's intervention kicked off a UK-wide interest in the story which had been missing when Goodwillie signed for Clyde in 2017. It goes without saying that the correct outcome was belatedly reached, and that the episode will forever remain a stain on the Raith board.

However, lost in the furore as politicians and other people of influence stampeded to get involved was one inconvenient fact.

Clyde Women played at a higher level (Championship South) than Raith Rovers throughout the years Goodwillie was scoring goals for their men's team. There were no dire predictions then about the wider implications for Scottish women's football.

McDermid has switched her backing to the former Raith women's team, who as McDermid Ladies, will play a friendly against Livingston Dev today. As the game will be a symbol of the novelist's stance against the club she has supported all her life there looks set to be a sizeable crowd.

And hopefully, given time, this formidable woman will recognise the new name needs a progressive tweak . . .