Football Federation Australia (FFA) and FIFA today announced that FFA would receive FIFA Goal Project Funding of $A536k ($US500k) over two years to deliver a National Women and Girls Football Development program.

FFA’s Head of Community and Women’s Football Emma Highwood made the announcement today and believes that this funding will go a long way towards promoting and developing Women’s and Girls football at the grass roots level around the country.

“Firstly, I would like to thank FIFA for providing this important funding for Women’s Football in Australia,” said Highwood.

“Through this funding we aim to increase the number of girls and women playing football in Australia and also improve the elite player pathway to ensure the continued success of our Women’s National team, the Westfield Matildas.

“To achieve these goals we will allocate the majority of the funding to employ development officers nationwide to implement a variety of initiatives which includes the establishment of female Skills Acquisition Programs (SAP) with the necessary equipment.

“In addition we will look to establish a Female Coaches Mentor Program that will see an increase in the number of accredited coaches with advanced qualifications to provide them with the necessary knowledge and experience to coach at the highest levels.

“With the greater number of Women and Girls playing football coupled with an improvement in the expertise of the coaches at all levels of the talented player pathway, we believe that we will provide technically better players and coaches to our national teams for years to come,” concluded Highwood.

The Women’s and Girls Development Programs, funded by the FIFA Goal Project, will officially commence from today and will be coordinated by former Westfield Matilda and current FFA Women’s Football Development Manager Sarah Walsh and Ante Juric who is the FFA Assistant National Technical Director Women’s Football and Assistant Coach of the Westfield Matildas, in conjunction with the Member Federations.

The nine (9) development officers are Kathryn Gill, Aisling Callaghan, Rani Cavarretta, Brooke Spence, Renee Rollason, Hayley Todd, Nadine Shiels, Aroon Clancey and Lauren Colthorpe.

Image: FIFA Executive Committee Member, AFC Vice-President and FFA Board Member Moya Dodd, FIFA Development Officer Domeka Garamendi and FFA’s Head of Community and Women’s Football Emma Highwood.