Think about every coach your daughter has ever had. Now ask: how many of them were women? For most families in Victoria, and across Australia, the honest answer is very few, or none. Not because women aren't passionate about football. Not because they don't understand the game. But because the pathways into coaching have been built without them in mind, and the financial, social, structural barriers have quietly held the door shut for a very long time.

Right now, only 14% of registered football coaches in Victoria are female.^[1] That means the people shaping how the game is taught to girls — calling the drills, delivering the half-time talk, deciding how much a young player gets to play — are overwhelmingly men. Football Victoria's CoacHER Pathway Program is a direct, determined response to that imbalance. And with FIFA now mandating female coaches at every level of the women's game globally, the work that CoacHER has been doing since 2025 has never been more urgent, or more relevant.

Where It Started: The Foundation Before CoacHER

To understand CoacHER, you need to understand the ground it was built on. For years, Football Victoria and Nike had been working together through the Nike FC Cup, Victoria's women's state knockout tournament, to grow women's football from the community up. Nike's involvement went beyond sponsorship: the company covered team entry fees so that financial cost was never the reason a women's team couldn't participate.^[3]

In August 2023, that partnership took a significant step forward with the announcement of the Nike FC Accelerator Program, a four-year commitment, based primarily at the Home of the Matildas, designed to drive gender equity in football through three clear pillars: access to certified coaching programs, access to world-class facilities, and investment in female leadership.^[4]

The results were immediate. A coaching education investment made as part of the program doubled the number of female C-Licence coaches in Victoria. At the time of the Accelerator's launch, there were already 593 accredited female coaches in the state, and the program was targeting a further 26% increase in year one alone.^[4] It proved something important: when you remove the barriers, women come. They were always there. They just needed the door open.

CoacHER is the next chapter of that story. Funded through the Growing Football Fund and proudly supported by Football Australia and CommBank, it took the momentum built by the Nike FC Accelerator and transformed it into a dedicated, permanent pathway for women in coaching at every level of the game.^[2]

What CoacHER Actually Does

CoacHER is not a one-off event or an awareness campaign. It is a sustained, structured pathway designed to walk women from their very first step in coaching all the way through to advanced qualifications and professional opportunities, with support at every stage of the journey.^[1]

The program is open to women, girls and gender diverse individuals aged 16 and over, regardless of experience level. Whether you have been coaching for a decade, are currently playing and thinking about the next chapter, or have never held a whistle in your life, CoacHER is designed for you. Sign-up is free, and once registered, participants are automatically considered for any relevant funding opportunities that open up, meaning they never have to be across every grant application window themselves.^[1]

The Day It Launched: 10 May 2025

On 10 May 2025, Football Victoria launched CoacHER at the Home of the Matildas, and what unfolded was the largest female-only coaching course ever delivered in the state of Victoria.^[2] More than 85 women gathered for a day of learning, connection and inspiration. By the end of it, 72 had completed their Foundation of Football qualification, and 15 advanced coaches had taken part in an in-person CPD workshop specifically designed around match-day coaching, the first of its kind in Victoria.^[2]

Emily Sutcliffe, Football Victoria's Coach Education Coordinator and one of the driving forces behind CoacHER, described what it felt like to be in that room. "Seeing such a large group of women all in one space, learning and supporting one another, was incredibly powerful," she said. "The day was more than just technical training — it was about creating an environment where women felt genuinely seen, heard, and valued."^[2]

The emotional weight of the day was not lost on anyone present. Two participants approached staff in tears, overwhelmed, not by the content of the course, but by the simple experience of being in a football environment surrounded entirely by other women. For many of them, it was the first time that had ever happened.^[2] That detail tells you everything you need to know about how long this kind of space has been missing from the game.

Sutcliffe summed up what CoacHER is fundamentally trying to do with a clarity that cuts through any policy language: "This is what CoacHER is all about — community, growth, and opportunity. We are here to back every woman who wants to make a difference in football."^[2]

And Football Victoria's position on why it matters is equally clear: "The more women we see in coaching roles, the more we inspire the next generation of girls to step up, not just as players, but as leaders in our game."^[2]

Who Can Join — and How

CoacHER is open to women, girls and gender diverse individuals aged 16 and over who are involved in football in any capacity, as a player, a coach, or an administrator. For access to the Nike FC partnered funded coaching courses specifically, eligibility extends to those at clubs that took part in either the 2024 or 2025 Nike FC Cup.^[1]

Registration is free. Once signed up, participants are automatically enrolled into any relevant available funding opportunities and guaranteed invitations to workshops, events and other CoacHER initiatives as they become available. A new wave of Nike x FV Women and Girls Coaching Courses covering funded courses from MiniRoos through to A-Diploma was also announced as part of the program's ongoing expansion.^[1]

If you're a woman who loves football and has ever wondered whether coaching might be your next step, CoacHER is the answer to that question. Not "maybe someday." Now.

What This Means for Girls in Our Community

The research on this is consistent and clear: girls who see women in positions of authority in their sport are more likely to stay in that sport, more likely to develop confidence, and more likely to imagine themselves in leadership roles, on the pitch and beyond it. The coach standing at the edge of the training pitch is not just teaching football. She is teaching something about who belongs in that space.

When that coach is a woman, the message changes. It says: this game is for you. Not just to play, but to lead. To teach. To shape. To build. That is the message CoacHER is working to make available to every girl who kicks a ball in Victoria. And FIFA's ruling has now made it a message the entire global game must take seriously.

At Hero Athletica, we believe sport builds confidence, friendship and strength, and that girls deserve gear, stories and role models that reflect that belief. We know that role models don't live only on social media or on Olympic podiums. They live on Tuesday night training pitches, in school holiday clinics, on the sideline of an under-10s game on a Saturday morning. CoacHER is building an army of those role models. And every one of them matters.