The head of women's and girls' football Hannah Dingley will present the FAI's women and girls' football action plan in Dublin's Mansion House on Tuesday evening.
It's a significant day for Dingley, who started in her role last May, succeeding Eileen Gleeson after she'd been appointed permanent head coach of the Republic of Ireland the previous December.
Delivering a women's and girls' football strategy was one of the stated aims in the FAI Football Pathways Plan that was released 13 months ago.
Its specifics will be of great interest to anyone with a stake in the women's game, which has enjoyed huge growth at grassroots level in the last few years. The FAI have said over 45,000 women and girls are registered as playing regular competitive football in Ireland.
Considering only 33% of amateur clubs have female-friendly toilet facilities, there's clearly work to do to harness and nourish the rise in interest. Dingley will address such issues and likely expand on long-term plans for the SSE Airtricity Women's Premier Division in her presentation. The FAI has previously aired an intention to establish a second tier in the LOI women's game.
Home-based sessions for the strongest LOI players have been scrapped, while last autumn the association announced it would disband its Emerging Talent Programme, putting more responsibility on clubs to develop talented youngsters.
Dingley is also likely to face questions around the details of her own position. There were reports last year that the FAI changed the head of women's and girls' football role from a permanent job to a fixed-term gig, which led to some candidates dropping out of the race.
After the FAI opted against keeping Gleeson on as head coach in the wake of the Euro 2025 play-off loss to Wales, it also emerged that the 52-year-old had a clause in her contract that ensures she has the option of staying in employment with the association in some capacity. It's still unclear what role, if any, she now fills.
In July 2023 Dingley became the first woman to manage a men's team in the English Football League when she temporarily took the reins at Forest Green in League Two. The Englishwoman had been the club's academy manager, establishing a girls academy at Forest Green in 2021.
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