Monday, July 29, 2013

Sports Minister pledges additional support for women's football

Women's football is to receive additional support from the Scottish Government, Sport Minister Shona Robison has pledged.

The boost for Scotland's fastest growing sport was announced as Ms Robison attended the Women's Football Conference in Stockholm as a guest of UEFA.

She will take part in a panel discussion where the 54 football associations will talk about how to develop the sport.

Scotland's women's football team has climbed the Fifa world rankings from 29th to 20th, and from 17th to 11th in the UEFA European rankings since the appointment of Anna Signeul as the national team manager.

Ms Robison said: "Women's football in Scotland is going from strength to strength and the Scottish Government is a committed supporter. We have an excellent working relationship with the Scottish FA and Scottish Women's Football, and have played a key role in the growth of girl's and women's football in Scotland. That has helped the national team reach its highest ever ranking and the Glasgow City team reach the latter stages of Uefa Women's Champions League competition.

"Girls' and women's football is the fastest growing sport in the world. The Scottish FA and national team are raising the profile of women's football by winning games and providing positive role models. That's why it is now the top team sport for girls in Scotland, with over 200,000 girls trying football through our Active Schools Programme last year.

"Sportscotland have invested more than ?2.2m into women's football to fund the national coach, assistant national coach, under 19s coach and a number of other posts, with the sportscotland institute of sport providing strength and conditioning, performance lifestyle and physiotherapy support.

"So we are in good shape, but the heartbreak of the national team just missing out on the Euro 2013 finals in the dying moments of a playoff encourages us to do more to build on this success. I plan to offer additional support to improve the current training environment for national players to help them to deliver on the international stage."

Ms Robison said full details of the support package would be made available in autumn.

She added: "I am confident that it will help our national team compete with the best in the world."

Source: http://news.stv.tv/scotland/234247-scotlands-sports-minister-pledges-additional-support-for-womens-football/

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