The National Football League, the organisation that oversees and controls America’s most popular sport, was formed in the 1920s.

Yet for some reason it took until this week for any of its teams to appoint a full-time female coach.

Kathryn Smith, the woman to break the glass ceiling that has existed for almost a century, was named as a special teams quality control coach by the Buffalo Bills, based in the update New York city of Buffalo.

She had worked as an administrative assistant to head coach Rex Ryan this season after working for 12 years for the New York Jets.

“Kathryn Smith has done an outstanding job in the seven years that she has worked with our staff,” Mr Ryan said.

“She certainly deserves this promotion based on her knowledge and strong commitment, just to name a couple of her outstanding qualities, and I just know she’s going to do a great job serving in the role of Quality Control-Special Teams.”

This is not the first time the Bills have pushed at the gender barrier. Linda Bogdan in 1986 became one of the sports's female scouts when she joined the team’s player personnel department. (The first female scout in the NFL was Connie Carberg, who was signed by the New York Jets in 1978.)

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Ms Bogdan, who died in 2009, was the daughter of late Bills Hall of Fame owner Ralph Wilson, according to ESPN.

Several NFL teams have employed women in prominent roles in the front office. Amy Trask was the Raiders’ chief executive officer for owner Al Davis from 1997 until she resigned in 2013.