Vera Pauw (; born 18 January 1963) is a Dutch football coach and former player. She currently manages the

Republic of Ireland women's national football team ) , Association = Women's Football Association of Ireland , Confederation = UEFA (Europe) , Coach = Vera Pauw , Captain = Katie McCabe , Most caps = Emma Byrne (134) , Top scorer = Oliv ...

. She has managed several national women's football teams, including

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

Playing career

As a child, Pauw played football with her two brothers on the streets. When she was 13 years old SV Bredorodes started a women's team which Pauw joined, and at the age of 18 she moved to VSV Vreeswijk to play at a higher level. Soon she arrived at the Netherlands women's national football team and from 1983 to 1998 played 89 international matches, but never qualified for the final tournament of a World Cup or European Championship. She did become the first female Dutch player to play professionally outside the country, when she signed for Italian

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Cop ...

club Modena in 1988. After two years in Italy, she returned to the Netherlands and played for Puck Deventer and SV Saestum.

International goals

:''Scores and results list the Netherlands goal tally first.''

Coaching career

In September 1998, Pauw was appointed coach and technical director of

, at the same time her husband Bert van Lingen was working as assistant manager of

Glasgow Rangers Rangers Football Club is a Scottish professional football club based in the Govan district of Glasgow which plays in the Scottish Premiership. Although not its official name, it is often referred to as Glasgow Rangers outside Scotland. The fou ...

. She departed in October 2004 to take up a similar role with the

and led her home country to the semi-final of

UEFA Women's Euro 2009 The 2009 UEFA Women's Championship, or just Women's Euro 2009, was played in Finland between 23 August and 10 September 2009. The host was appointed on 11 July 2006, in a UEFA Executive Committee meeting in Berlin and the Finnish proposal won over ...

. She was controversially fired in the first half of 2010. In April 2011, she succeeded Igor Shalimov as coach of the

on an interim basis. In September 2011 she was replaced by Farid Benstiti. After that she was appointed as a technical director of Russian team. In March 2014, she became the

coach, replacing Joseph Mkhonza who became a selector for the national team. She said at the time "I am excited to become part of this ambitious project in which we can develop our girls into international stars. SAFA is aiming high with women’s football." Pauw explained that she had previously had a great deal of involvement with the South Africa setup due to the frequency of friendlies with the Dutch while she was managing them. She resigned as South Africa head coach after leading the nation to the

2016 Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro ...

. On 27 November 2017 Pauw was hired as the new head coach of the

Houston Dash The Houston Dash is a professional women's soccer team based in Houston, Texas. It joined the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) in the 2014 season, and is affiliated with the MLS team Houston Dynamo FC. History Establishment On November ...

. On 20 September 2018 Pauw departed from the National Women's Soccer League club. On 4 September 2019, Pauw was appointed as the new manager of the Ireland team. Despite Ireland's narrow failure to achieve a play-off position from UEFA Women's Euro 2022 qualifying Group I, Pauw agreed a two-year contract extension in February 2021. She then made up a historic milestone after the narrow missing of the Women's Euro 2022, guiding the Irish team to the first-ever major tournament, the

2023 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup is scheduled to be the ninth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup competition, the quadrennial international women's football championship contested by the women's national association football teams organised ...

, with an emotional 1–0 playoff win over

Personal life

Pauw is married to her former national team coach Bert van Lingen.

Rape allegations

In July 2022, Pauw accused an unnamed Dutch FA director and later football manager of sexually abusing her during her playing career. Former coach Piet Buter then declared he assumed he was the subject of he
accusation
and denied all allegations except for having an affair with her at the time. The

KNVB The Royal Dutch Football Association (, ; KNVB ) is the governing body of football in the Netherlands. It organises the main Dutch football leagues (Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie), the amateur leagues, the KNVB Cup, and the Dutch men's and wome ...

(Dutch football association) stated that it had made errors handling Pauw's complaints and was sorry that she had not had a safe working environment.

Misconduct scandal

In December 2022, Pauw was named in a report by the US National Women's Soccer League that discovered widespread ongoing misconduct in the National Women's Soccer League. The report claimed that during her time in charge of Houston Dash, Pauw attempted to exert excessive control over her players eating habits. Pauw denied any wrongdoing.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pauw, Vera 1963 births Living people Footballers from Amsterdam Dutch women's footballers Netherlands women's international footballers Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Ireland Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Italy Serie A (women's football) players Expatriate women's footballers in Italy Dutch football managers Female association football managers Dutch expatriate football managers Expatriate football managers in Scotland Expatriate football managers in Russia Expatriate soccer managers in South Africa Expatriate soccer managers in the United States Scotland women's national football team managers Netherlands women's national football team managers Russia women's national football team managers South Africa women's national soccer team managers National Women's Soccer League coaches Houston Dash coaches Olympic coaches Women's association football defenders Expatriate football managers in the Republic of Ireland Republic of Ireland women's national football team managers Dutch expatriate women's footballers Puck Deventer players SV Saestum players C.F. Euromobil Modena players Dutch expatriate sportspeople in the United States Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Scotland Dutch expatriate sportspeople in South Africa Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Russia