Kay Cossington interview: Why she's leaving the FA and joining new multi-club organisation founded by Bay FC investor Sixth Street

The FA's women's technical director talks exclusively to The Cutback about her new role and why it's the right time to leave The Football Association

Cossington has been at the FA since 2005. Credit: The Football Association

“It’s the right time for me personally, but I think it’s also the right time for the FA.”

Kay Cossington is speaking exclusively to The Cutback as she announces that she will be leaving the Football Association at the end of the season to take on a new role as chief executive of the newly formed Bay Collective, a multi-club women’s football organisation set up by global investment firm Sixth Street.

Cossington has been the FA’s women’s technical director since 2020 as part of a 20-year career at the organisation that has seen her coach and develop the set up for the England senior and youth national teams.

“It’s probably the best point that I can walk away and feel rest assured that they are in a really strong place.”

Cossington’s focus at the FA was in developing a specific pathway for the women’s team that was not just a copy and paste model from the men’s game. In her new role with Bay Collective she will be bringing her learnings to club football. Bay Collective, which officially launches this year, has said it will be “dedicated to holistic excellence and the growth of women’s football”.

Cossington’s appointment also includes a role as head of global women’s football at Sixth Street. The firm are the lead investor in Bay FC, who joined the NWSL at start of the 2024 season for a franchise fee reportedly worth $53 million. The Bay Collective will support the California-based club’s “commitment to player centricity and developing athletes on and off the field”.

Bay FC finished 7th in their first season in the NWSL. Credit: Bay FC

“Up until four, five years ago, England had the same technical division,” explains Cossington. “There was one plan for England teams, men and women. One strategy, one philosophy, one budget, and it was driven based on how you develop male players.

“What I always found was that the ecosystem of men’s football was a distant cousin of where the women’s game was at. Yet we had the same plan. So I was very fortunate to be given the freedom and scope to tell the FA what I thought, and that’s what we did, and only three years later we had won the European Championship.”

Even beyond the Euros victory - Cossington describes it as an “out of body experience” - she has presided over an unprecedented time of success across the England age groups, with the Under-17s reaching a Euros final and World Cup semi-final and the Under-19s reaching a Euros semi-final. Yet when asked about her proudest moment from her time at the FA, she settles on a unique statistic.

“We were the only country at the 2023 World Cup where every player in the squad had been capped in the age group teams. I was really proud of that because it’s difficult to identify potential talent in the women’s game where the pathways are so diverse. We have worked for twenty years to get to a point where we’re constantly evolving with more and more resources.”

Cossington, pictured left, celebrating Lucy Bronze’s 125th England cap, alongside England manager Sarina Wiegman. Credit: England

Part and parcel of England’s success at senior level has been the FA’s recruitment of manager Sarina Wiegman, something that Cossington was heavily involved in, having originally met her as part of a FIFA mentoring course for coaches.

“We sat together one evening for dinner and it was the first time we had physically met each other, and we did not stop talking for hours. She grew up in The Hague, I grew up in east London but we were completely on the same page with the same vision for the women’s game.

“Fast forward, the England job became available and I phoned her and said ‘Is there any chance you would be interested?’ and it went from there.

“That relationship between the technical director and head coach is special if you get it right and connect like we have. Yes it’s about the performance of the team, of course it is, but we both add so much value in other areas because we are so strong together.”

Cossington puts the recent success of the England set up down to “the ability to make decisions that are right for the players.”

“For example, we went after female athlete health quite a bit. How do we deal with menstrual cycles? How do we deal with breast care? How do we deal with compression garments that are right for the female body?

“We put talent development pathways in place that harnesses the different environments girls are coming from. It’s not just an academy system - girls are coming from mixed football, girls football, academies.

“There’s a uniqueness to what women want and what women need. Whether that’s the meeting room spaces, whether that’s the changing rooms, whether that’s the gym equipment. How do we harness a connection with female athletes that gives them what they need to thrive? How do we put a support network around them to give them all the tools to be the best they can whilst they’re in our environment?”

Cossington will now be taking this knowledge to build out a similar programme in a club environment.

“I spend a lot of time in clubs within my current role and I see the complete diversity of structures. The strength that we can bring is what we’ve learned within the federation - the principles that we believe have been advantageous to developing players but also the vision. Giving and sharing expertise that we’ve learned along the way is going to be really impactful for the clubs that we’re going to be working with.”

Whilst initially Cossington will be predominantly working with Bay FC, the idea is that moving forward a global team will expand the portfolio to other clubs in different markets. Multi-club models have become increasingly popular in the women’s game with Michelle Kang’s Kynisca Sports International now owning Lyon, Washington Spirit and London City Lionesses, and Mercury 13 hoping to do the same beyond their ownership of Como in Italy.

“The priority is to help and support the club we already have,” insists Cossington. “Then we want to start looking at a range of different portfolio clubs globally. There is no door shut. We are open and receptive to conversations about different clubs.”

Multi-club models have often been criticised within the men’s game for stripping away teams’ unique identities or turning smaller ones into feeder clubs. But Cossington believes that they suit the women’s game by encouraging knowledge sharing and standard setting.

“It enables us to push forward in developing female players and sharing research and innovation. It opens up opportunities for developing talent in different countries. It allows us to provide a platform for what the identity of women’s football is.

“We want to grow and evolve the product. We want the game to be beautiful. We want fans to come and watch it. We want players to be role models on and off the pitch. We want female leaders and coaches to be the next generation of role models for the game.

“There’s so much work we can do and it needs investment, but it also needs leadership and direction.”

That will be Cossington’s to provide as she moves into the next phase of her career.