Smashed! HOLLIE WANTS FAIR PLAY OVER WOMEN’S SPORT
EXCLUSIVE
CONCERNED, confused, even a little cranky.
That best sums up the mood of Team GB hockey skipper Hollie Pearne-Webb when asked to ponder the potential post-coronavirus damage to women’s sport in Britain.
The 2016 Olympic gold-medal winner appreciates the financial losses sustained since professional sport was suspended in early March.
Smaller budgets are inevitable. Barely a day passes without a governing body warning huge cuts in future investment will be an unavoidable consequence of Covid-19.
But Pearne-Webb, 29, is hacked off hearing that female sport in the UK will be hit even harder than male sport.
Any such suggestion leaves her perplexed and agitated.
Whether cricket, football or her very own hockey, she argues the girls must still receive the same support from grassroots level upwards as the boys.
That means slashed budgets have to be fair – and shared across the gender divide.
Pearne-Webb, capped 62 times by GB and 93 by England, said: “I don’t really understand why women’s sport has to go backwards now. I see this being bandied about quite a bit at the moment but I simply don’t understand why it should be the case.
“There’s been a huge surge in women’s sport over the past couple of years – and rightly so. Why shouldn’t that continue?
“Little girls must have the same right to play football and cricket as boys. When I was at school we didn’t have that chance. We mustn’t go backwards.
“The fact is there’s been an increase in the popularity of women’s sport as it’s become more visible. So just because it’s not on TV as often as men’s sport doesn’t mean we don’t have the fanbase, as some people argue.”
Certainly, television viewing figures of late appear to back up that point.
Team GB’s victory over Holland in the Olympic final four years ago – when PearneWebb scored the shootout winner – secured an audience topping 10 million. The England team’s glorious run in netball at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and in the Women’s World Cup cricket a year earlier, also captured the public’s imagination.
Throw in the 11.7million armchair fans for the Lionesses’ World Cup football semifinal defeat to USA last summer and it is obvious women’s sport is booming – or was before coronavirus.
Pearne-Webb, awarded the MBE in 2017, added: “The hockey final in Rio attracted 10 million. The netball two years ago was one of the most watched events that year.”
As for GB’s postponed Olympic hockey defence, the delay to 2021 could work in the holders’ favour, says Pearne-Webb.
The Surbiton defender said: “We’re a relatively young squad compared to Rio – so being a year later should be a positive in that respect. Absolutely.”
Just because it’s not on TV as often doesn’t mean we don’t have the fanbase