The Republic of Ireland Women's football team manager tells us why things are going in the right direction

There has been a significant rise in the profile of ladies sport globally over the past few years, with the modern day ethos narrowing the gender gap.

Tennis has to be top of the list but recent headlines (like a world record crowd of 60,730 attending the Barcelona v Atlético Madrid match on St Patrick's Day) have shown that female football is also getting huge attention.

Colin Bell is the manager of the Republic of Ireland's Women's football team and can definitely see a huge improvement in the game here too.

Speaking on Today FM's Dermot and Dave, Colin says;

People are taking it seriously. The standard of play has increased and developed. The girls are great to work with

Bell discusses the wealth of young talent we have here in this country and praises the FAI for showing some initiative;

The FAI made a massive leap forward in the women's game when they brought me in...I am the first full-time coach in the women's game in Ireland

And although they are on the right track, he does admit that infrastructure and the"attractiveness" needs to be worked on in order to entice more people into getting involved.

All eyes on the Euros in 2021

After a very strong campaign in the World Cup qualifiers, where they were unlucky not to get through, Colin has big plans in place to give the girls the best chance at qualifying for the UEFA Women's Euro 2021;

The biggest thing we can do is qualify for a tournament

You can hear the passion in his voice - he wants his squad to progress and bring Irish football forward in general.

Like us, the former Mainz coach is delighted at the news that RTÉ & TG4 have been given the rights to ALL the games in the Women's World Cup (7th June-7th July).

Hopefully we'll see our ladies lining up in the Aviva in the not-so-distant-future. Wouldn't that be something!?

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