From the often unsung women volunteers, who are the powerhouses of so many of our grassroots clubs, to the world class athletes such as Ciara Mageean and NI women’s football team making history – we’ve had a lot to celebrate this Women in Sport Week.
But as the week draws to a close it’s an ideal time to reflect on the strides we still need to make to level the playing field, on and off the pitch, between women and men in sport.
We know from recent surveys that women are less likely to have taken part in sport at least once within the last year, 55%, than men, 62%. At post primary school level of those who never participated in sport outside school 45% were girls compared with 31% boys.
Unfortunately, this gap gets wider on our sidelines with women representing just 19.5% of the overall sports coaching workforce and this drops to just 10% for those who coach our World, Olympic or Paralympic athletes.
These aren’t statistics that we can be proud of, but they are spurring us on to achieve equality and inclusion for all. We have already invested £2.2m in Performance Sport in the last year that saw 42% of the results being delivered by women athletes. Half the recipients of our Athlete Award, that helps athletes financially to concentrate on their chosen sport, were women and through our Sporting Clubs Programme, we’ve awarded £1.8m to sports that in total have 40% female club membership.
It’s also essential that female voices at all levels of sport are heard to make a positive change and that’s why we’ve launched our Women In Sport Panel. This sees women from different sporting backgrounds offering their expertise on how to overcome barriers and create opportunities for women and girls in sport.
This panel is one step in strengthening equality, diversity and inclusion in our sporting system, but there is more work to do. There is no single solution to achieve the change needed, but people working together will be the key.