![\"Union](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/02247777-4085-4aa1-8e96-0f1db9ed860d.jpg\")
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Union Berlin interim coach Marie-Louise Eta during training today as she became Bundesliga’s first female coach.<\/p>\n
Press Association<\/p>\n
Yesterday at 14:12<\/p>\n
Union Berlin\u2019s director of football Horst Heldt has described sexist abuse towards new head coach Marie-Louise Eta as \u201csimply embarrassing\u201d.<\/p>\n
Eta, 34, became the first woman to take charge of a men\u2019s team in any of Europe\u2019s top five leagues when she was named head coach of the Bundesliga club until the end of the season following Steffen Baumgart\u2019s sacking last week.<\/p>\n
Since her appointment, Eta has been the subject of sexist abuse and comments on social media.<\/p>\n
Heldt released a statement saying Union stood by their decision.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI\u2019ve noticed the sexist comments but I refuse to give these voices a platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, this is solely about leadership quality \u2013 and we are fully convinced that Loui is up to the task. I find it absurd that we still have to justify this in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re talking about a highly competent leader here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe at Union stand united behind this decision and will do everything in our power to ensure that this is no longer a topic of discussion in the future. All of this is simply embarrassing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eta has taken interim charge of the men\u2019s team until the end of the campaign and will then start her role as head coach of Union\u2019s women\u2019s team in the summer.<\/p>\n
The club also called out trolls in a series of posts on their X account.<\/p>\n
They posted a picture of Eta taking training for the first time on Tuesday with the caption: \u201cBack to work, everyone. All eyes on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Monday, England boss Sarina Wiegman described Eta as a \u201ctrailblazer\u201d, adding: \u201cI think this was a matter of time anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, congratulations to her, and Berlin. It\u2019s exciting. It shows that, again, football is moving up. There\u2019s women in society everywhere, and the next step is that it\u2019s also in football.\u201d<\/p>\n
Union Berlin are currently 11th in the Bundesliga, with Eta\u2019s first game in charge at home to Wolfsburg on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Union Berlin interim coach Marie-Louise Eta during training today as she became Bundesliga’s first female coach. Press Association…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,898,112],"class_list":["post-399149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}