The female game has experienced rapid growth in New Zealand in recent times and that progress is set to continue over the coming days as a Girls and Women’s Football Week is held in each of the country’s seven federations.

The initiative is part of New Zealand Football’s wider ‘Get In to Football’ campaign, which is focused on the key strategic goal of more New Zealanders playing and loving football.

In a significant change from previous years, Girls and Women’s Football Week is being run by each federation at a time that is most suitable to their own needs and situation, rather than all federations running them in the same week. Central Football and Capital Football have both kicked things off this week while Auckland Football have also got their campaign underway with the launching of a female-only pre-season tournament.

“Our excellent women’s football development team across the country are on the ground delivering a range of activities for girls and women to get into football and have fun,” explains Holly Nixon, Women’s Football Development Manager for New Zealand Football.

“The purpose is to get more girls and women into both football and futsal and there are so many opportunities – ranging from playing and refereeing to coaching. We just want people to get in and give it a go,” she adds.

“Last year, we gave nearly 10,000 females a taster of football and futsal during the week and this year we hope to provide opportunities to even more. There are so many benefits for young girls and women to get into football, such as health and right through to social reasons.”

The growth of the women’s game in New Zealand is one of the success stories of the Whole of Football Plan, which was launched by New Zealand Football in 2011 to provide an aligned approach to the development of the sport and ensure high-quality experiences for all participants. In the past five years, participation rates in girls and women’s football have risen by 35 per cent while thousands of females have also been introduced to futsal – one of the fastest-growing sports in the country.

That rapid development in the grassroots side of the game has been echoed at elite level, with the Football Ferns rising to a highest-ever world ranking of 16^th and nearly 20 players now based in professional full-time environments in various parts of the world.

Many more are likely to join them over the coming years with the Future Ferns Development Programme (FFDP) making great strides in its aim of bridging the gap between the amateur domestic game and professional football overseas. For example, Katie Rood, CJ Bott, Jana Radosavljevic, Meikayla Moore and Aimee Phillips have all graduated from the programme to sign professional contracts in recent months.

Each of those players are role models to the thousands of females likely to be introduced to the game during the Girls and Women’s Football Weeks, which include school festivals, skill centres, tournaments, coaching courses and referee workshops. There will also be appearances from Football Ferns stars such as Sarah Gregorius, Annalie Longo and Rosie White.

The Girls and Women’s Football Weeks arrive in the midst of a hugely exciting period for the female game in New Zealand with a Futsal Ferns national team now established, the U-18 Futsal Ferns heading off to the Youth Olympic Games in October and the Football Ferns aiming to qualify for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in November.

Domestically, the National Women’s League is set to be extended to two rounds for the first ever time this season while the Women’s Knockout Cup will be re-branded for the coming campaign. Indeed, the highest level of the domestic game has never been more visible with the finals of both the National Women’s League and Women’s Knockout Cup being screened live on SKY Sport last year.

In other areas of the game, female-only coaching courses are now common place and have resulted in an increase in numbers while all National Women’s League teams are required to have at least one female on the coaching staff, as is the case at all women’s FIFA tournaments.

Just as much progress is being made in refereeing with the likes of Anna-Marie Keighley and Sarah Jones continuing to shine on the global stage. Both took part in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games while Jones became the first Kiwi woman to be appointed to the Hyundai A-League panel and Keighley made history as one of the first females to be involved in an all-men’s tournament at the FIFA U-17 World Cup last October.

“The introduction of the new futsal national teams, the ongoing success of the FFDP and the ground-breaking achievements of our referees and coaches mean there is now a clear pathway to the top in all participation strands of the women’s game,” Nixon says.

“Those about to fall in love with the game during Girls and Women’s Week therefore have no shortage of inspirational women to look up to and can see that there are opportunities for them to achieve all they want in football.”