This evening, as a nation, we will be supporting the England women’s football team as they take on the USA in the Women’s World Cup semi-final in Lyon – a wonderful achievement. For any sport, regardless of gender, to reach this stage in such a tournament is a great way of uniting a country and showing just how powerful sport has the ability to be: a fantastic platform.
This year’s Women’s World Cup we have finally begun to see the tournament given the media coverage it deserves (last World Cup the team also reached the same stage in the tournament but many are unaware). It’s 2019 and we’re shocked to see women’s sport shown on terrestrial channels, radio and digital! This has largely been driven by BBC Sport and its women’s summer of sport campaign. The decision to air the World Cup has been a good one for the BBC, as a record-breaking peak UK TV audience of 7.6million watched England beat Norway 3-0 in the quarter-finals, while the global viewing audience for the semi is expected to reach up to one billion.
England manager Phil Neville revealed that since taking charge in January 2018, the team’s objective is to inspire and leave a legacy. Even he was shocked when he realised the team were actually thinking bigger than winning a World Cup, they wanted the Lionesses to have a name that people around the world can relate to… badass women.
There is no doubt that we now have the start of a movement when it comes to women’s sport, and football in particular, but realistically there is so much that needs to be done before we could ever come close to equality. Will we ever really see our daughters aspiring to be footballers in the way we do our sons?
Only last week Neville declared England full-back Lucy Bronze “the best in the world”, and seeing superb talent across the globe in this tournament, a 13-0 win by the USA team over Thailand being just one example, one of the issues to address is parity around pay before we can even become close.
I’m not sure how much the women’s team are being paid but, and I’m dangerously generalising here to make a point, but if we compared Bronze with top world talent in the men’s game – Messi for example is reported to earn somewhere in the region of £300,000 per week – I’m sure Bronze’s salary doesn’t come close. In a December 2017 report for FIFPro, a representative organisation for football players worldwide, they found that 88% of players in the Women’s Super League in England earn less than £18,000 a year. In comparison the average for men in the Premier League, currently comes to £2.6million.
However, as with dealing with equality in any industry, singling out one factor, such as gender pay gap, can actually be more dangerous than helpful, and some of the biggest and more important challenges are around effecting societal changes in attitudes and behaviours.
So how will we ensure that before looking at addressing issues such as pay do we make sure the basics are covered? First of all making sure women first of all have a pitch to play on, decent facilities to train on – unbelievably, some of the grounds the England league play at still don’t have hot showers. Then by looking at how we maintain media interest and publicity so that women’s football becomes as attractive to advertisers and sponsors as men.
But most importantly, it requires some of the sport’s largest stakeholders (The FA, Fifa etc.) to take responsibility for working with schools and driving change in attitudes at a much earlier age. My daughter Millie is just six, but like many girls her age is often told she can’t play football, rugby or climb ‘because she’s a girl’. These comments are often in jest or harmless, but the result is a perception very early on that our girls should have different aspirations to our boys. We need to quash some of the ideals that shape our behaviour and thinking that certain roles and careers are better suited to boys than girls, and vice versa.
Whatever the result this evening, and with the talent the USA has shown so far it will be a tough game, we should ensure that momentum around women’s football continues and we use the platform and support that has been created to ensure that by the next World Cup tournament we have at least begun to make small steps towards equality.
Johanna Beresford is CEO of In Diverse Company, an HR and tech consultancy