Moving with the times...

...Scotland are planning ahead for future success.

It's refreshing to hear the Scottish government are investing £200,000 into the Scottish national women's football team. The reason for this injection of money is to assist with their chances of success in the 2015 World Cup qualification campaign. With the exception of more experienced players like Arsenal's Kim Little, currently most of the players in the senior team work/study full time, whilst partaking in 15-20 hours of football training a week. The funding will help ease financial strains for these players, allowing them more of a chance to focus on football training and also include more time for recovery.

Scotland women have never reached a major championship, the furthest they've gone is European Championship play-off stages. Head coach Anna Signeul has spent 8 years trying to help develop the women's national team, starting out with a successful few years as U-18's manager and working her way up to the senior squad. Her hard efforts have not gone unnoticed with a recent nomination for the Ballon D'or 2013  'FIFA World Coach Of The Year' award. She goes up against fellow strong nominees such as German head coach Silvia Neid and Arsenal Ladies' Shelley Kerr.

Scotland are currently 2nd in their qualifying group for the 2015 World cup and it's safe to say that they are taking this campaign very seriously. As for women's football in Scotland, here's a very interesting article I read recently by Andy Muirhead. He covers the reasons Scottish women's football has struggled to ever get the support it deserves in comparison to England and other "bigger nations". He goes on to comment on the minimal media coverage, lack of Scottish FA support and also suggests some worthy points regarding the future promotion and development.

Overall, what the Scottish government are doing is progress at least and it shows that they are beginning to make positive changes for the future generations to come.