Bayern Munich sealing a 13th out of the last 14 men’s Bundesliga titles was one of the weekend’s predictable stories in German football. Another, less welcome, story was the misogynistic online reaction to Marie-Louise Eta becoming the first woman to coach a match in one of Europe’s top five men’s leagues.
Eta’s interim spell in charge of Union Berlin — appointed until the end of the season before a planned return to the club’s women’s team — ended in a 2-1 defeat to Wolfsburg. The match and its aftermath drew widespread attention, but social media discussion was clouded by sexist comments, prompting Union’s social media team to call out and moderate abusive users.
Celia Sasic, vice-president of the German Football Association (DFB), backed the club’s approach, telling t-online that the moderation was “absolutely the right thing.” She said the comments were unacceptable and attacked core sporting values: “respect, fairness, and equality.”
Eta sought to keep attention on the sporting side while acknowledging the abuse. “It says more about the people posting it online than about the people being talked about,” she said after the game.
Eta’s experience echoes that of other female coaches who have led men’s teams. Helen Nkwocha, the Black British coach who in 2021 became the first woman to lead a men’s top-division European side when she took charge in the Faroe Islands, told DW she has faced similar hostility. In the Faroes she received racially offensive messages alongside questions about the islands’ location. Nkwocha urged clubs to support their coaches and to focus on football rather than sensationalising appointments.
A subtler strain of sexism has been the assumption that Eta would prefer or be steered toward a permanent men’s role if she succeeds, or be relegated to coaching women if she does not. Union president Dirk Zingler rejected that framing after the match: “I’m not having a discussion that says if she does well she stays with the men, if she does badly she coaches the women. That does women’s football a disservice.”
While male coaches commonly lead women’s teams, women managing high-level men’s sides remains rare, though there have been instances in lower leagues — for example, Sabrina Wittmann’s interim role at Ingolstadt eventually became permanent. Robin Afamefuna, captain of fourth-division Fortuna Köln and a cultural anthropologist studying sexism and racism in football, said Eta’s visibility matters for future generations. “When we talk about visibility and role models, about what young girls see now, then commitment is very important,” he said. Seeing a woman in such a role shows girls that the path exists.
The DFB counts roughly 4,000 female coaches with C or Pro licenses qualified to coach professional teams, yet Afamefuna warned that structural and systemic barriers still limit opportunities. “It’s a very deeply rooted, structural, systemic problem that affects women in football,” he said. “We have to talk about the fact that women are disadvantaged in football, and these structures need to be broken down.”
Eta’s debut has shown that the sport’s patriarchal norms can be challenged, but the hostile reaction also underlined how many hurdles remain for women seeking equal opportunity in men’s professional football.
Edited by: Jonathan Crane