Will we ever see a female football manager?

On the face of it there is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't one day see a Football League club managed by a woman.

After all, out in the real world there are a great number of woman in high-powered managerial jobs and many of them will have men working for them.

As we know though the real world and the football world are two very different places.

Even in football though, of course we do have female chief executives and assistant referees.

However, these women of course are not managing a squad of red blooded, 25 testosterone-fuelled men.       

So will it ever happen?

Well, I recently attended a level one FA coaching course and of the 25 people on it, only one was female. So that would suggest that there is not a very large pool of female coaches to pick from. We do see men managing some of the women’s football teams so why can it not work the other way round?

One argument is that a squad of 25 footballers would not respect a female coach. There may be issues that she would face in the dressing room such as sexism. If all that is going on, as well as everything else, then this is obviously going to cause a distraction and results may suffer.

We should also consider this from the chairman’s point of view. Who is going to be brave enough to appoint the first female manager?

It’s not difficult to imagine how the supporters might react. They are unlikely to react positively. We only have to look at when Sian Massey became an assistant referee. She encountered a lot of sexist stereotypes such as she wouldn't know the offside rule, and she wasn't even given a chance.

As it turns out she is a very good assistant referee, one of the very best in fact, but our game certainly didn't welcome her in very warmly.

There are a few good female managers out there. Hope Powell would be one, she has progressed the England Women’s team very nice in her 15 years in the job.

They did fail at the Euros last month, but you don’t become a bad manager overnight. She was even linked to the vacant Grimsby Town manager’s job in 2009 shortly after guiding England to the final of Euro 2009. Of course, she didn't get the nod in the end, but until a chairman somewhere gives a woman a chance to manage a football club, gives her the time to win the players and supporters round and achieve some success, then we aren't going to see many female football managers.

It should happen though, as the likes of Sian Massey and Karen Brady have proved that women do have a place in the men’s game. After all, at the right club at the right time a female manager might not face too much sexism.