New regulations to protect the rights of female players including mandatory maternity leave are set to be introduced, FIFA have announced. 

Football’s international governing body has proposed worldwide maternity regulations for female players and coaches for the first time. 

The new rules would include a mandatory 14 weeks maternity leave on at least two-thirds of contracted salary.

On the athletes’ return to the game after maternity leave, clubs will now have to ‘reintegrate female players and provide adequate medical and physical support’.

FIFA say its aim is to create a ‘new global minimum standards’ for female players and to ensure ‘no female player should suffer a disadvantage as a result of becoming pregnant’.

The governing body could impose transfer bans on any club that fails to meet the new requirements. 

The new reforms have been put forward by FIFA’s Football Stakeholders Committee and is set to be approved by FIFA’s Council next month.

FIFA’s Chief Women’s Football Officer Sarai Bareman said: "As we try to accelerate the professionalisation of the women’s game, which is one of our strategic objectives, it is really important that we evolve and adapt the regulatory framework around the game at the same time. This is a very good example.

“We want to see more women being able to earn a living playing football whilst at the same time being able to have a family life and being mothers. It is important that we provide the necessary regulatory framework to protect those women.”