‘Clubs used the fact that I was a mum against me’

The fight for respect encompasses every level of women’s football, with the Ballon d’or controversy a depressingly familiar narrative for those who have found themselves undermined.

Helen Ward, Wales’s all-time leading goalscorer, yesterday revealed to The Daily Telegraph how two different female coaches, now both mothers themselves and still working in football full-time, “used the fact that I was a mum against me”. The former Arsenal, Chelsea and Reading forward, now at Watford, is a mother to daughter Emily, four, and son Charlie, one.

The first incident took place before she started a family. “It was the time of year when people were sitting down and talking about contracts,” Ward, 32, said. “I sat down with my coach and she said, ‘Look – we’ve heard you’re going to start a family, so we’re not willing to take the risk that you might do that’.

“It had never come from my mouth – it was a rumour. Nobody knew if I could have kids. It was an excuse for her to not renew my contract.”

Ward faced the same barriers at another club after returning from maternity leave. “I was in good form. The club was transitioning from part-time to partly professional, so a number of players were taking up professional contracts for the first time. I was confident I’d done enough. When I had my meeting, it was a case of, ‘It’s going to be difficult for you, so we’re going to offer you this, as a part-time player’.”

Ward was the only first-team regular offered part-time terms and accepted them “because I was worried that [if I protested] I might not get anything at all”.

Kat Mace, of Maidenhead United Ladies, spoke yesterday of the sexism she had to overcome to play football as part of her GCSE PE exam in 2007. “I knew from years of playing that football was my No1 choice,” she said. “I sat down with my PE teachers and they were like, ‘Are you sure? Don’t you think you should do badminton?’

“Their concern was that I would be marked against the boys and that would affect my grades. They just assumed I would be worse than the boys. The teachers’ views filtered down to the students. A lot of the sexism also came from them.”