Kay Cossington has spent 20 years building from the bottom up at the Football Association but now it is time for change. “I am a visionary, I love building things and specifically building things around women’s football, which has been my life,” she says. “So to have a blank piece of paper, a clear vision and a higher purpose, and then to sit there and work out how the hell do we do it, that’s the bit that drives me. I don’t have to break anything, I don’t have to remould anything, I can actually set this up from the ground up.”

The women’s technical director is leaving the governing body for club football, poached by the lead investor in NWSL side Bay FC to head up new, global multi-club women’s football organisation Bay Collective. Cossington had various roles before becoming the first women’s technical director in 2020 and she will join investment firm Sixth Street as their head of global women’s football and serve as the CEO of Bay Collective, which launches this year.

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Bay Collective is the third multi-club ownership structure backed by private finance at the higher end of women’s football, following Michelle Kang purchasing Washington Spirit, Lyon and London City Lionesses and the Victoire Cogevina Reynal-led Mercury 13, who have begun their multi-club journey by buying the Italian side Como.

Cossington says she is stepping away from the FA at what feels like “a good moment” with women’s football in the country in “a strong place”. She adds: “It’s scary and really exciting all at the same time. What we’ve built in England and at the FA has taken years and years, breaking down many glass ceilings. I feel really proud and believe that now is the right time to go because we are in such a strong place.

“The national team is thriving, the talent pathway is producing player after player, the academy system is building. I feel like it’s a good moment to be able to step away from it, knowing that we’ve just launched the new four-year plan of ‘winning together’.”

Cossington will stay on until the end of May to aid a transition period, leaving shortly before England begin their defence of their European title in Switzerland. “To be honest, it’s hard to go at any point,” she says. “The beautiful thing and the tough thing about the women’s game is that there’s always something. I feel really confident that I’m going to give my absolute all in the planning and preparation in the buildup to the Euros and, of course, I will be watching with admiration and will more than likely will be there supporting the team, just in a different seat now.”

After two decades at the FA, the pull of the new role was being able to start from scratch with something new. Ultimately, there are only so many ways you can polish the pyramid once its built.

The move away from working with the national team setup and pathways into the development of club football is a big one but it was a shared view on the game with co-chair of Bay FC and co-founder of Sixth Street, Alan Waxman, that led to the decision. “The women’s game is the fastest growing women’s sport across the globe,” she says. “We know that. The journey it’s been on in the last five or six years has been something that none of us could have really anticipated.

“I really feel like now there is an opportunity with Bay Collective to reshape women’s football. We will really look to provide on- and off-pitch excellence so that we can encourage and support female players across the world, building infrastructure and more to help them perform at their absolute optimum. There’s a variety of ways that we think about this and it will always be football first. We want to ensure that we prioritise football excellence and prepare female players.”

That ethos is one she was a big advocate of at the FA. “Every decision we make is about how do we develop female players, whether they’re seven, eight, nine, or whether they’re 25, 26 and in their prime. That was the big shift that we made at the FA.”

The starting point will be Bay FC, the first club in their multi-club plans. “Post-May there’ll be a lot of time and attention spent there to give them the support and the expertise that the Bay Collective global team will bring,” explains Cossington. “That will be priority number one, with a very close priority number two being actually going out and sourcing other clubs that want to be part of the collective and engage in this real great ambition and desire to kind of grow the game.”

Cossington’s knowledge on the development of pathways for players from youth to senior football will also be utilised but it will not look the same. “It’s something that’s really close to my heart,” she says. “What I’ve recognised, and seen in the job that I’m in now, is every youth system and talent pathway across the world looks different. What we do in comparison to Germany, to Spain, to France, to the US, to Australia, it all looks very different, and I love those differences and think we have to embrace them because there was no golden kind of pathway, it was about the principles.

Ultimately Cossington is “ready to take the next step” and make a mark somewhere new. “I’m ready to leave a footprint somewhere else in a positive way. I’ve been given an opportunity to be able to almost take the principles of what we’ve driven in England and apply it to club football globally and give girls and women the opportunity to truly become who they want to be on and off the pitch. I’m a former player, I’m a former coach and I love the game.”