GIVEN that everything Ann Budge has done to put Hearts on a more prosperous footing has been thorough and impressive, her announcement that the women’s team is being taken in-house will not be a box-ticking exercise.

Budge chose the club’s annual general meeting to break the news, and it will be accompanied by an academy structure and a six-figure yearly investment. The Hearts owner also told the shareholders that the recruitment of a new manager for the women’s team is well down the line.

However, Hearts will not divulge details of their ambitious plans until they make a major announcement at the end of next month. The impression is that Budge intends her club to be a major player in the women’s game.

The priority will be to be promoted to SWPL1. Once there, Hearts can compete with arch-rivals Hibernian for the best young players in Scotland who attend the national performance academy at Heriot-Watt University. The latest to move to the academy and switch clubs is 17-year-old Rangers defender Leah Eddie, who signed for Hibs last week.

The advantage Hibs derive from this is a source of resentment to other clubs, but as long as the academy is in Edinburgh the teams there will benefit. What will be interesting is to see how Hibs – whose women’s team is not part of the main club – react to the Hearts development.

DOES the quickly changing landscape call for league reconstruction? There is already a proposal for a 10-team SWPL2 in 2020 that will be put to the annual general meeting of Scottish Women’s Football next month.

That being the case, should there be 10 teams, and not the current eight, in SWPL1 as well? The second tier now contains a number of clearly ambitious clubs with increasing funding behind them – but although all would add value to the top division only one can be promoted each year.

Although it couldn’t happen in time for the 2020 season, unless voted through at an extraordinary general meeting, this is surely a desirable development. Eight teams playing each other three times is unsatisfactory, and the reason for it has gone now the men’s clubs are starting to invest in their women’s sides.

SWF say they plan a review of all the league structures in the New Year.

IT'S unlikely that Jose Mourinho, who is currently out of work, will feel any financial compunction to apply, but Stirling University are on the cusp of advertising for a new women's team head coach.

Unlike most of the posts in Scotland it will carry a full-time salary, albeit for a 28-hour week rather than 35. That will make it an attractive proposition, and the indefatigable Alison Mackie, who is the driving force behind the team, expects a high quality response.

Even so, and given the need for due process, there is unlikely to be much time between the appointment and Stirling's first league game – away to Motherwell on February 10.

There is also a change of regime at Forfar, who announced Stevie Baxter as their new head coach in midweek. Mark Nisbet, along with assistants Kev Candy and John Diplexcito, have left the Angus club.

The appointment of Baxter, whose previous experience includes a spell with the New Zealand Under-21 side, continues the rapid turnover at nearly all the SWPL1 clubs. Head coaches work long hours, are poorly compensated, and Scott Booth at Glasgow City is very much the exception to the rule having stayed in the job for three-and-a-half years.

Next is Amy McDonald at Rangers, but every other SWPL1 club will start the new season with a different head coach from the one in place 12 months earlier.