Women’s Football Development Strategy 2026-2030

The Strategy is available on the official HNS website in the Documents section.

The Strategy, titled “Women (Don’t) Belong in Football”, was officially presented during the HNS conference “Women in Football”, held in Sveti Martin on 12 and 13 May, with the participation of HNS representatives, clubs, instructors, coaches and other stakeholders involved in women’s football.

The document sets out a systematic development plan for women’s football through five strategic pillars – grassroots and participation development, improvement of the competition system, strengthening of the talent identification and national team pathway, professionalisation of management structures, and increasing the visibility and social impact of women’s football.

Among the key objectives by 2030 are increasing the number of registered female players to more than 4,000, establishing WU-13 leagues in all HNS regional centres, reducing player dropout rates after the age of 18, developing a stable league system with eight clubs in the top division, and ensuring continued progress of the women’s national teams in European qualifying competitions.

The Strategy also places a strong emphasis on the education of coaching staff, the development of female coaches and administrative capacities, the expansion of the UEFA Playmakers programme, digital transformation and greater media visibility for women’s football. Special focus is placed on equality, accessibility of football for girls across all regions of Croatia, and the creation of a sustainable and professional development system.

With this Strategy, the Croatian Football Federation confirms that the development of women’s football is one of its strategic priorities for the coming period, with the aim of creating a stable, competitive and long-term sustainable women’s football system in Croatia.

Copyright by Croatian Football Federation. Quoting text from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to HNS as a source and providing direct link to the original content at hns.family. Re-use of the photographs is not permitted.