Fairness is at the heart of sport and without separate categories for the sexes there would be no women in Olympic finalsWhat is fairness? In sport, everything. From childhood, we come to see the headstart in the playground race, the shove in the goalmouth, a rogue thumb on the egg (and spoon) as unjust, and quickly, loudly, “Oi!” object.The same sense of probity works its way up into professional sport. Sandpapering a cricket ball: not fair. Boxing with loaded gloves: not fair. Intentional misrepresentation in Paralympic classification: not fair. Colluding with betting syndicates to fix a result: not fair. Doping in sport: not fair. We classify our sports in order to pitch like against like and to keep people safe....
While it is hardly a surprise that male footballers dominate boot marketing, the fact that a large amount of professional female players are wearing men’s or children’s boots surely isPretty much every day someone pops up on my Twitter timeline to let me know about market forces. It’s not inequality that pushes women’s sport into the shadows, it’s economics. Don’t take it personally!This month the conversation about sport’s gender pay gap spiked with the publication of Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid athletes. There were no sportswomen on the list. While it’s interesting to know just how many Ferraris Neymar’s PSG contract could buy, or that it covers the wages of the top 1,693 female footballers in the world, the...
History tends to overlook the incredible contributions of women in football, which is why it is important to tell the story of Fifa’s hijab ban and those who helped overturn itFootball is full of incredible histories, many that remain undocumented and unknown. In particular, women’s football history gets left aside. There are efforts by historians and football lovers to educate the public on the incredible contributions of women in football. On International Women’s Day I was at the National Football Museum in Manchester for a women’s football conference to present on football and the hijab to a room of academics and researchers. Although there is much to be celebrated, there is still a sordid past that, as footballers, supporters and...