Players absent due to periods will be remunerated under new FIFA regulations

Players will receive full remuneration if they exercise an entitlement to miss training sessions or matches for menstrual health reasons as one of a host of new regulations for women's football introduced by FIFA.

The changes to the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP), which came into effect on Saturday and were unanimously endorsed by the FIFA council earlier this month, build on existing regulations that were first announced by FIFA in November 2020.

The announcement also includes new provision for adoptive parents and non-biological mothers.

While the 2020 reforms, which outlined global minimum labour conditions for players, did include a minimum 14-week maternity leave, it was at the time enshrined for players only.

Coaches will now also be allowed the same, while a minimum of eight weeks paid absence have been granted to female players or coaches who have adopted children aged younger than two, reduced to four weeks for a child between two and four years of age and to two weeks for a child older than four.

Jill Ellis was in charge when the United States won back-to-back World Cups in 2015 and 2019, and adopted her then three-year-old daughter when she was coaching a US college team.

The 57-year-old, who led the Technical Study Group at last summer’s World Cup, said: "(A football career) shouldn’t be exclusive of being a mum or raising a child, it should be inclusive of that.

"If I didn’t have support around me, I wouldn’t have had the ability to do that and maintain my career.

"I think it’s a big statement. These are big steps and big strides to really normalise the life that we go through as women.

"That’s what we want to provide now at every level, the club level, the national team level – the