The World Cup legacy: How can we create sustainable participation for girls and women’s football?
Bevan
In July and August, one of the biggest global sporting events, the women’s FIFA World Cup 2023, will be hosted in Australia and New Zealand, bringing fans, hype and excitement around the Matildas and the sport of football itself.
The World Cup is anticipated to catalyse a legacy that seeks to build ongoing football participation in the respective host countries.
Major events such as the Olympics and world cups have legacies developed to promote participation and pathways in a sustainable manner.
However, the legacy effects of mega sporting events are questionable, with some studies suggesting they don’t change physical activity or sporting participation levels, despite their intention to do so.
With the World Cup 2023 about to start, it’s timely to consider the potential ripple effect a successful tournament by the Matildas might have on women and girls’ football participation at a grassroots level, in particular considering how well-equipped community football is to support increases in participation by women and girls.
Increasing girls and women’s participation in football
We explored the experiences of club volunteers and women players involved in the development of a newly-formed multicultural women’s football team.
There was no shortage of women wanting to play football, which is often thought to be a key issue; however, clubs and teams faced many difficulties in becoming established and participating regularly.
Accessing space to play is the main challenge for a women’s team. Local councils allocate pitches and facilities that they manage and maintain based on existing usage. This makes it very difficult for a new women’s and girls’ team to gain access to facilities.
Further, unless you’re a well-established, financially sound, and highly populated club – which new teams and clubs are not – there are limited competition options.
Read more: Sport for all? Why Australian sport needs to embrace informal participation
In our study, this led to the women’s team struggling to access competitive opportunities, and ultimately having to play in a faith-based league as the only option available.
This created multiple tensions for the players involved due to conflicts between LGBTQ+, ethnic, and religious identities.
Our data highlights that if you’re a woman wanting to play football, it’s not just a case of finding a club and being able to play.
Despite significant resources and policies directed at gender equity in sport, the spaces, processes, and ingrained gender and cultural relations continue to affect women’s participation in community football.
There were multiple spatial injustices in allocation of space for sport that significantly constrained participation for both a multicultural club and a women’s team. Ultimately, these constraints limit the capacity of women and girls to participate, and perpetuate gender inequities.
Where to next?
If the FIFA women’s World Cup 2023 is going to achieve a participation legacy for girls and women, the current structures, supports and systems need to be redistributed, which means investing in both human and structural resources.
Further, the cultural and social processes and practices embedded in community sports mean those in power remain privileged, which leaves little space and opportunities for girls and women.
At a basic level, our research would suggest there aren’t the structures and facilities within grassroots football at the moment to support significant growth in participation, and women and girls will continue to have to fight for spaces and opportunities to play.
This issue has been recognised in other sports seeking to grow the participation of women and girls, including Australian rules football.
For football, if we’re serious about creating a legacy from the substantial opportunities provided by hosting the World Cup, infrastructure and support are needed to facilitate growth.
This needs to be addressed now to ensure girls and women have access to sustainable opportunities to participate.
About the Authors
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Nadia bevan
PhD candidate, Faculty of Arts
Nadia is passionate about creating inclusive sporting environments for all, in particular girls and women. Nadia has worked on a number of projects that strive towards reducing barriers for sport and physical activity participation for girls and women, youth and the LGBTQ+ community. Originally from Adelaide, Nadia moved to Melbourne to undertake her PhD at Monash University after working on a gender equality in sport and recreation project in regional Victoria.
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Ruth jeanes
Professor, sport, physical activity and social exclusion, Faculty of Education, Monash University
Ruth is a Professor and Head of the School of Curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive Education within the Faculty of Education at Monash University. She is a sociologist and her research aims to address inequity and discrimination within sport, as well as examining the role of sport in addressing complex social and health issues. She is currently working on two ARC-funded research projects examining the role of informal sport in creating healthy and socially cohesive communities and a further project examining ongoing gender inequities within Australian sport. Ruth's research has attracted a range of external funding. She is lead investigator on a recently awarded ARC Linkage grant 'Informal sport as a health and social resources amongst diverse young people' ($250,000) with co-investigators Dr Justen O' Connor, Professor Dawn Penney and Professor Ramon Spaaij and in partnership with VicHealth, Centre for Multicultural Youth, Cricket Victoria and the Department of local governernment, sport and cultural industries. This study builds on a recently completed project also funded by the ARC Linkage scheme ($200,000) for a project 'Participation versus performance: Managing (dis) ability, gender and cultural diversity in Junior Sport'. The grant team was led by Professor Ramon Spaaij from Victoria University. Methodologically Ruth seeks to give voice to disempowered individuals and communities within her research by drawing on a range of participatory approaches developed from her PhD. Ruth's PhD thesis utilised feminist post-structuralism to examine the role of sport and specifically soccer in the construction of girls' gender identities and she has developed this area to research and continues to publish on how constructions of gender and sport can facilitate and constrain girls' involvement in sport. More recently, Ruth's research has examined the role of sport in assisting young homeless men to connect with support services, to support identity (re) construction amongst men experiencing mental illness, and the ways in which newly arrived and refugee committees use sport when settling in Australia. Ruth has an ongoing interest in examining the experiences of young people with disabilities in sport and leisure contexts. Internationally she has undertaken extensive research work in Zambia, examining the role of sport in HIV/AIDS education as a tool to empower young women and as means to foster hope and a sense of community amongst both men and women living in highly impoverished urban compounds. Ruth regularly conducts evaluations examining the impact of sport and social change initiatives for national and international agencies including UNICEF, the Football Foundation and Centre for Multicultural Youth. Ruth is President of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Leisure Studies and is a member of several journal editorial boards including the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Sociology of Sport Journal, Managing Sport and Leisure and Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health. Research interests Sport and international development Social policy and sport Coaching and community development Gender, sport and physical education Research methodologies and young people Young people with disabilities, family and leisure
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Hayley truskewycz
PhD Candidate, Faculty of Education
Hayley is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education. Her current research focuses on examining sport policy and programs that target newly-arrived and refugee women to achieve resettlement outcomes. Her areas of interest include understanding how sport is used as a policy tool to facilitate social outcomes (such as integration, resettlement, empowerment, mental health and wellbeing), and developing strategies to increase engagement and inclusion of marginalised communities in sport and physical activity.
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