New analysis has revealed that inner-city teenage ladies are being left behind in football in England regardless of the Lionesses’ historic Euro 2022 victory final summer season.
According to a examine performed by Football Beyond Borders, 63% of teenage ladies are unable to identify any of the Lionesses, whereas 25% of them have by no means watched a women’s football recreation. Additionally, 67% of teenage ladies do not observe any women’s football gamers on social media.
Football Beyond Borders is an training charity that works with younger people who find themselves obsessed with football however disengaged of their training. The programme helps them purchase the talents and grades wanted to transition efficiently to maturity. The charity’s programme has aided 1000’s of ladies to stay at school, uncover their passions, and develop in confidence.
The report additionally revealed that final summer season’s win, for all of the document breaking numbers hooked up to it in phrases in in-stadium attendance and TV audiences, had little impression on inner-city teenage ladies’ engagement with women’s football.
The findings of the examine have prompted the charity to urgently fundraise to save the essential legacy of England’s Euro 2022 triumph and promote participation and engagement in women’s football. The charity is searching for to elevate sufficient cash to fund its programmes earlier than the tip of the upcoming World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
“I’m not surprised, and I don’t know if that’s because of my background and still being real to where I come from and having conversations, but it just doesn’t surprise me,” former England and Arsenal participant Alex Scott stated on the findings.
“I was so outspoken and passionate with Ian Wright during the Euros because I know that I had to overcome a lot to get into the space that I am in now.
“Teenage Alex was lucky, because I signed for Arsenal when I was eight, so then all my focus was on not letting the opportunity go…Everyone knew I was already signed to Arsenal, so it was cool right?”
“There was a narrative, publicly and nationally, that the Lionesses had inspired a generation, that everyone was going to be watching more football, that WSL attendances were up. All these things are true, and we’ve made huge, huge progress. This report does not deny any of that progress, but it does zoom in on a voice that often isn’t captured in the national media, and that’s the voice of a teenage girl living in an inner city,” said Ceylon Andi Hickman, Football Beyond Borders’ head of brand.
“Focusing on participation and how much more girls are playing misses that emotional thing that we all know, as football fans, is so important to our identity. We really wanted to understand what the picture was for our girls, and we wanted to understand what we could do now.
“What was really interesting, and what we dug into, is that men and boys gatekeep culture,” stated Hickman.
“In schools, they dictate the hierarchy of cool and often at the top of that hierarchy is men’s football. We workshopped, and the player whose name came up the most was Bukayo Saka. He’s peak cool, he’s positioned in the right places, he’s doing the right collaborations, and he will dictate what is cool in schools. Unfortunately, girls and women aren’t on that hierarchy of cool.
“When women’s and girls’ football is seen as the sort of ugly little sister of the men’s game, it becomes really difficult if you’re a teenage girl in school who really does love women’s football and you do play. It is hard to be a teenager. And it is even harder to be a teenage girl.
“The adolescent brain is really malleable around ages 13 to 14. They are hardwired for peer approval, the thing that matters most to them is whether their friends like them. So if the thing that means you’re cool in school is men’s football and everything associated with it, and women’s football makes you uncool, if you love women’s football, it’s really hard to embrace that. That was me at school. It’s having a dual identity, you are forced to have one foot in and one foot out.”
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