Fault! Tennis reveals huge gender pay gap

THE Lawn Tennis Association are the first major sports governing body to make public their gender pay gap figures, which reveal just how much better their male employees are paid.

Government legislation now requires every organisation with more than 250 employees to publish the gender pay and bonus gaps. And the LTA, who caused uproar when Sports

Agenda revealed that former chief executive Roger Draper received a £640,000 pay package in 2012, award their male workforce far more handsomely than females, although the 293 employees are split almost equally between sexes. There is a whopping 31 per cent disparity in the average pay, and the gender bonus gap is 55 per cent.

The accompanying report attributes the gaps to men occupying most of the senior management roles at the top of the salary scale and bonuses related to winning the Davis Cup in 2016. However, men and women in like-for-like roles are paid equally, which hasn’t been the case at the BBC where the gender pay gap furore began.

The LTA statement signed by chairman David Gregson added: ‘ We are not satisfied with this and we are acutely aware that we still have work to do in closing this gap. Our lack of diversity and gender imbalance, particularly at senior levels, is something we want to address.’

The ruling bodies of the country’s three biggest sports — football, cricket and rugby union — will be under scrutiny when they reveal their gender pay gap numbers before the April deadline. The big three are already warning that their bonus gaps are exaggerated by the incentivised rewards for success in male team sports.