We believe in ensuring that women and girls have equal opportunity to enjoy the benefits of sport through tackling sexism in sport at every level. This includes challenging explicit cases of discrimination and harassment as well as addressing the underlying barriers to equality.
Elite sport continues to set men and women apart. The men’s decathlon has been contested at every Olympics since 1912 but there is still no place at major championships for the women’s event. While men play five sets at Tennis Grand Slams, women can only compete over three sets.
We also see significant gender gaps when we look at the number of women participating in sport – 1.5 million fewer women than men participate in sport at least once a month. We also see clear gender gaps when we look at the number of women working in sport at every level. Women make up only 18% of qualified coaches and 9% of senior coaches. For almost half (49%) of publicly funded national governing bodies, less than a quarter of their Board are women.
We work to ensure equality of opportunity by focussing on getting more women and girls participating in sport, more women working in sport at every level and by driving commercial investment in and media coverage of women’s sport. We also work to ensure that women and girls who do engage with sport receive equal respect to their male counterparts.