When I started, there were 30 men in charge of women’s rugby
Katie Sadleir says she has seen change over her decades in sports management which should encourage more women and girls to get involved.
She competed in synchronised swimming, taking part in the 1984 Olympics and winning a medal at the 1986 Commonwealth Games. In the early days, she didn’t notice gender inequality.
“I had parents that believed you don’t specialise too early on in sport.
I did volleyball, ice skating, dancing, swimming…all kinds of sports,” said Sadleir, who is general manager of Women’s Rugby at World Rugby. “When I competed in synchronised swimming, I trained hard. I was living in a bubble.
“It was only much later that I began to realise the gender stereotype in sport. The sporting achievements recognised in school assemblies were mainly the male sports where the boys were championed but the girls’ sports barely got a mention.”
Sadleir, who was born in Aberdeenshire but brought up in Canada and has spent much of her life in New Zealand, decided to carve a career out for herself in sports management.
“I am very much of the opinion that when there’s an opportunity, you should grab it, so I didn’t really let anything hold me back. For that reason I never saw any gender challenges,” she said.
“But just because I personally didn’t see them, that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.
“There are definitely fewer women at the top when it comes to sport. I remember one meeting where the men were speaking to my male colleagues, not to me. And one of my counterparts had to point out that I was in fact the person at the head of it.”
Sadleir, who will take up the post of Commonwealth Games chief executive later this year and become the first women in the role, recognises and acknowledges the need for change.
“In my first year in women’s rugby it was governed by 30 men,” she said. “There was not a single woman yet 27% of participants in rugby globally were women. We added 17 women on to the board in the first year.
“We also changed the name of the Women’s World Cup in 2017, to just World Cup to deliberately take the gender out of it and make sure it was perceived and discussed at the same level as men’s rugby.
“It’s really all about embracing inclusion and diversity and I would hope that will continue.”