IT’S been an eventful month or so for women’s football in Scotland. It began in mid-September when the national team qualified for Euro 2017. The scale of this achievement cannot be underestimated both for national coach, Anna Signeul, and for the group of players who have had to bounce back from numerous narrow misses in recent qualifying campaigns.

Then came a massive fortnight; in the first two weeks of October, both Glasgow City and Hibs Ladies played last-32 ties in the UEFA Women’s Champion’s League. Glasgow City were up against Eskilstuna of Sweden and Hibs took on German champions Bayern Munich. Both Scottish teams were eliminated but again, the significance of having two Scottish representatives in the last 32 of the competition was huge.

However, a reality check was delivered to women’s football in Scotland last week in the shape of a 7-0 drubbing by Holland in a friendly at Livingston’s Tony Macaroni Arena. If you’re going to get hammered 7-0 then certainly a friendly is the time to do it, but the result illustrated that the gulf in class between Scotland and the teams which are ranked in and around the world’s top 10 (The Netherlands are 12th) is vast.

There can be no argument that women’s football in Scotland is moving in the right direction; Signeul has transformed the national team in the 11 years she’s been head coach and in Kim Little, Scotland possesses one of the finest female footballers Britain has ever produced.

Yet, in some ways, this progress is papering over the not insignificant cracks that lie in the infrastructure of women’s football in this country. A prime example of this is that it was reported that Nicola Docherty, the Glasgow City defender, was unavailable for Scotland’s match against the Netherlands last week because she could not get time off her job. Similarly, a little over 12 hours after leading out her team at Easter Road against Bayern Munich in one of the biggest games that Hibs Ladies have ever played, captain Joelle Murray was driving to work.

If Scotland’s women footballers are to maximise their potential then, for now, they must move down south or abroad. There are a number who have done this; Kim Little, Jenny Beattie, Jane Ross and Lisa Evans are just a few players who have played outwith Scotland in an attempt to progress their careers. But it is a significant problem that if Scotland’s female players want to become the best they can be, they must move out of their own country.

Scotland’s club teams, particularly Hibs and Glasgow City, along with the national team have demonstrated the huge progress that women’s football in this country has made in recent years. But the sport’s progress is getting close to its ceiling unless changes are made. Firstly, players in Scotland must be given the opportunity to be full-time. Becoming a full-time athlete does not necessarily guarantee success – there’s plenty of full-time male footballers in Scotland who unequivocally prove this – but elite sport has now reached a stage whereby being full-time is pretty much the minimum requirement. Almost none of Team GB’s Olympians in Rio will have simultaneously trained while working full-time jobs and all of the best women footballers in the world are paid to play, rather than working to subsidise their sport.

This is not to say that women’s teams should be on salaries on a par with men’s – to compare the men’s and women’s game is as futile as comparing apples and tractors – but to suggest that women’s teams are given a small amount of funds in order to make their set-up more professional is hardly outrageous. Down south, Manchester City’s women’s team transformed themselves within the space of five years from an amateur team playing in a regional division to Women’s Super League champions. Yes, the club invested money but it was an almost insignificant amount in comparison to what the men’s team operate with. Why could Celtic not do something similar? The equivalent of Moussa Dembele’s annual salary would fund the entire women’s squad for a year. It’s not much to ask when you consider the impact this kind of investment would have on the sport in Scotland. Greater opportunities at home mean fewer players leaving to play abroad which, in turn, strengthens the league exponentially.

Secondly, the women’s game must be given every bit of help possible. For example, the SWPL League Cup final earlier this season between Hibs and Glasgow City was held midweek at Ainslie Park. This almost automatically prevents any young Glasgow City supporters from

attending as they would not be back home until almost midnight on a school night. It’s not the way to grow the game.

The progress that the women’s game in Scotland has made in recent years is huge. With some small tweaks and slightly greater investment, further improvements will come thick and fast. It says much about football in this country that this hasn’t happened already. If we want to see footballing success in Scotland in the coming years, focusing on the women’s game is the way to do it.