MEANWHILE, In LEWES...

The non-league club’s non-executive director, Karen Dobres, tells FFT why equal pay had to happen at The Dripping Pan

“In July 2017, Lewes became the world’s first football club to give its women and men’s teams the same budget. Two years on, average gates have gone up to 546 from 120, just shy of the men’s figure of 610.

“The club is now 100 per cent community-owned, so we’re not looking to make a massive profit but to engage the local people instead. It’s no coincidence that attention around the place has increased dramatically.

“Lewes offers its senior squads the same level of coaching and the same pitches. The female team’s coach, Fran Alonso, was the assistant to both Mauricio Pochettino and Ronald Koeman at Southampton. He’s so fired up by the way his home country, Spain, is embracing the women’s game; in March 2019, a record

crowd of 60,739 turned up to see Atletico Madrid play Barcelona.

“Fran decides what his players are worth. For example, he made it very clear that he’s paying our Scotland international forward Zoe Ness the most money. She is effectively pro – she doesn’t work and can train five evenings a week. New Zealand forward Kate Rood is on a wage and then supplements that with coaching work. But one of our players has a cleaning job, so can only train three nights a week.

“I would love Lewes to reach the stage where everyone is pro. The dream here is to have more members than Barcelona, who currently have around 150,000. I realise there’s a long way to go, but there’s no reason why we can’t increase our membership globally. You’ve got to aim high.”