Pauw surge is on as Ireland get motoring
ON APRIL 10 2017, the Ireland women’s soccer team beat Slovakia 1-0 in a friendly game played at Tallaght Stadium.
One attendee posted a photo to social media from the match of a fan holding a sign that read, ‘Because of you we’ll get equal pay when we grow up’.
It was an arresting image, and much of its power derived from the events of that week, when the team had briefly threatened to strike.
Worn down by years of neglect from the FAI, the country’s women’s players had reached breaking point.
With the support of the Professional Footballers Association of Ireland, and despite intense pressure from the FAI and warnings about the effect their actions would have on their careers, the players called a press conference and outlined the disgraceful treatment they had endured in representing Ireland.
One detail got most attention. The players revealed that after trips away for Ireland, they had to get changed in toilets at the airport and hand back their tracksuits for use by other teams.
There were other humiliations. Players did not get paid match fees. They had been paid per diems, but they had been withdrawn.
Women who took time off work to attend international camps and games were not reimbursed. There were no bonuses for winning or drawing matches.
It was a shocking list. Emma Byrne, then the Ireland captain and a highly decorated player with a 16-year career at Arsenal that included winning the Champions League in 2007, said: ‘I’m actually a little bit embarrassed talking about it’.
The FAI tried to talk tough but within two days had reached an agreement that addressed the players’ concerns.
The subsequent collapse of the John Delaney regime explains at least part of the reason for the Association’s reluctance to do a deal with the players.
The money wasn’t there to meet their modest demands.
But it was also a pungent legacy of the old-fashioned thinking and treatment that designated women’s sport as a secondary concern in many codes.
Change has come slowly. Irish soccer generally has suffered a traumatic two years, but the long-term effects of Delaney’s departure and the consequent transformation of the FAI are certain to lead to improvements.
In the example of the women’s soccer team, though, a dramatic change came about within months of the collapse of the Delaney reign.
He officially resigned from the FAI on September 29, 2019 — almost five months after he went on leave as the calamitous truth of the dysfunctional organisation he dominated, became clear.
Twenty-five days earlier, on September 4, Vera Pauw was announced as the new manager of the women’s team.
Given the manner in which her new employers dominated headlines for most of 2019, Pauw’s arrival did not last long on the back pages.
Her impact on Irish soccer has been important, though, and news this week that she has signed a new two-year contract, taking her through to the 2023 World Cup, was recognised as a good news story for the sport in Ireland.
The retention of Dutch woman Pauw suggests that the FAI are finally regarding the women’s game in a more serious and respectful way.
She was a highly rated coach, proven at an elite level, when her countryman Ruud Dokter, the FAI high performance director, convinced her to join Ireland.
Dokter’s effect on Irish soccer is passionately debated, but in bringing Pauw to the country he did the Irish game some service.
Ireland famously missed out on qualifying for their first major tournament at the end of last year, when defeat to Germany in December confirmed their failure to reach the European Championships in England, refixed for July 2022.
It was the failure to defeat Ukraine in a qualifier in October, though, that did for the team.
Nonetheless, their improvements under Pauw were significant, and her retention was considered crucial to continuing their improvements to a point where they can qualify for the World Cup in 2023.
Pauw is a disciple of Rinus Michels, the revered Dutch coach, and her husband is Bert van Lingen. Pauw and Van Lingen were very close to Michels, and both have enjoyed significant coaching careers of their own, with the influence of Michels profound in both cases.
Van Lingen managed the Dutch women’s team twice, as well as assisting Dick Advocaat at Rangers, Zenit St Petersburg and Sunderland.
He had managed Pauw during a playing career in which she represented the Netherlands 89 times, and when she took over Ireland, she said it was Van Lingen who convinced her to take the job.
She qualified the Dutch for their first major tournament when they reached the semi-finals of the Euros in 2009, and has now brought a high-performance attitude to Irish women’s soccer.
For instance, she convinced the FAI to charter a flight to Ukraine before the match in October. It was sensible management given the risks to player health and preparations because of Covid-19 (difficulties her counterpart in charge of the men’s team would appreciate).
Pauw praised the decision of the FAI to accede to her request, but she also added, ‘If we are saying that we are driving towards gender equality, this was the necessary moment’.
Had Ireland qualified for the Euros, it seems certain that demands for fairness in match fees would have followed.
Since January of last year, the English FA has been paying the same match fee to its men’s and women’s teams.
Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and Norway have all committed to equal pay as well.
This is all a big change from the dismal circumstances that prompted the players to threaten a strike in April 2017.
Yet Pauw still took a major chance in joining the FAI a year and a half ago. The organisation was in turmoil, and its record in supporting the women’s team was not good.
‘They were so honest about the problems that we face,’ said Pauw at her unveiling.
‘They didn’t want to paint a picture for me that is brighter than it is. They also painted a picture of where we go from here; what has happened, where we are at this stage, and how they try to solve the issues step by step to get into a healthy situation.
‘That made me decide to do it, to be part of it. It’s people who want to grow, people who want to take steps forward and not to be in the picture themselves, but to work for the game itself. That is what you don’t see often in associations.’
And it’s not often the FAI get spoken of in such approving terms, either.
But in reaching agreement with Pauw for the upcoming World Cup campaign, the embattled organisation have sounded a rare, positive note.
Change came within months of Delaney’s exit
Pauw took a major chance in joining the FAI