VISION EXPRESS
The 20x20 campaign played its part in a stunning run of success
THIS coming Tuesday is International Women’s Day and, to mark it, some past and present Irish soccer internationals are gathering in a Dublin hotel to talk about where the team have come from – and where, potentially, they can go. The event is being organised by Sky, the national team sponsor, and illustrates again how the profile of players that once had to scrap for any sort of recognition has exploded in recent years.
Last Sunday, Ireland captain Katie McCabe scored a screamer for Arsenal in their women’s FAI Cup fixture against Liverpool. The goal was shown live on Irish television after the national broadcaster had worked out a deal with BBC to show a game that involved four prominent members of Vera Pauw’s squad.
If the idea did seem a good one, it did leave RTÉ open to the understandable criticism that they more or less ignore the Women’s National League, which kicked off yesterday. As the WNL’s profile grows though, they will have to contend with being overshadowed by the gigantic presence across the channel in the WSL, similar to the issue the League of Ireland has faced for years.
Still, if Ireland do break their major tournament duck under Pauw and qualify for next year’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the WNL would do well to heed mistakes made by the League of Ireland in the past and harness the potential for the game here. After all, the likes of McCabe did start off in domestic soccer.
It is now more than 16 months since the 20x20 campaign concluded. By any measure, it was a success. What started off as an initiative to raise awareness of women’s sport, and increase coverage by 20 per cent, snowballed into a much bigger cultural shift than even the founders, Sarah Colgan and Hannah Thornton of Along Came A Spider creative agency, could have anticipated. When things were brought to a close in October 2020, a survey found that 80 per cent of all adults were more aware of women’s sport since 2018 because of the initiative, and that included an 84 per cent increase among men, while 43 percent of women were participating in sport because of the project.
At the time, though, nobody was to know what the following 12 months would bring. From Rachael Blackmore becoming top jockey at Cheltenham and winning the Grand National to Kellie Harrington’s gold medal, from Meath’s impressive and composed performance in winning the Ladies Football All-Ireland to the Irish soccer team breaking scoring records against Georgia, Leona Maguire being the star of the Solheim cup on her debut, to McCabe emerging as one of the top players in the WSL.
The momentum gathered by an important campaign was taken to new heights by the exceptional performances of female athletes on a national and international stage.
‘If she can’t see it, she can’t be it,’ was the catchy tagline that accompanied the initiative. But the impressive feats of the likes of Maguire, Harrington, Blackmore, McCabe and Emma Duggan last year only emphasised that a whole new raft of role models for young girls has been cultivated in this country. Role models that might have been slightly hidden without a gentle push from 20x20.
Teneo Ireland, the public relations and communications firm, run a nationally representative survey each year called the Sports & Sponsorship Index. In 2021, unsurprisingly, it was dominated by female athletes. Harrington and Katie Taylor shared top spot in the ‘Most Admired Sports Star of the Year’ section, with Blackmore just behind. Harrington’s gold medal was considered the ‘Greatest Irish Sporting Achievement’ just ahead of Blackmore. The women’s soccer team made it into the top five in ‘Team of the Year’.
Everything is not rosy in the garden. The Irish rugby team’s failure to qualify for this year’s World Cup and the subsequent fall-out which was highlighted with the review released on Friday, and the resignation of Anthony Eddy, illustrates that there are still challenges for equality in many sports.
One can only hope that the brave stand taken by the 62 past and present players in calling out the IRFU for their neglect of the women’s game can be the first step towards that. It is less than five years since the soccer players took their stand in Liberty Hall and now they are on the road to possible World Cup qualification.
A greater challenge lies away from the playing field. In the Action Plan for Sport 2021-2023, all national governing bodies affiliated with Sport Ireland have been asked to have 40 per cent female representation on their boards by the end of 2023. Progress has clearly been made in that regard.
When Sport Ireland published its women in Sport policy in 2019, the average was only 24 per cent across all NGBs. By December of last year, that had risen to 32 per cent. While strides have been made, what was most noticeable were the organisations who had yet to even reach 30 per cent representation, which included the biggest sports in the country. The FAI had only 17 per cent female representation, the IRFU, pertinently considering what was released on Friday, only 13 per cent, while the GAA had eight per cent (the Camogie Association and the Ladies Gaelic Football Association had more than 50 per cent).
Most worryingly of all, considering the number of young girls now going to boxing gyms inspired by Katie Taylor and Kellie Harrington, the Irish Athletic Boxing Association had no female representation on their board.
Sport administration is fairly dull (although we do have an unhealthy obsession with our sporting administrators in this country), but having more women involved in the decision-making of sport is a key component in ensuring that there is equality across the board. Perhaps Dr Una May’s elevation to the top post in Sport Ireland, coinciding with Sarah Keane’s position as President of the Olympic Federation of Ireland, can get the ball rolling in having more female faces at board meetings of sporting organisations.
The eventual integration of ladies football and camogie into the GAA will also be a major step for female sport in this country. It was encouraging in the past week to see so many county boards in ladies football agree to the proposal, as they have often been seen as the stumbling block – understandable considering how they cultivated and nurtured their own identity over the past two decades.
But once both sports are inside the tent at Croke Park, the possibilities for further growth are endless. Imagine what an All-Ireland final weekend with camogie and Ladies football on the Saturday, and hurling and men’s football on the Sunday would do for the profile of the two sports – and in creating role models for young girls. A recent survey by YouGov suggests most people still view major sporting events as holding the key to future growth for women’s sport. Almost half of the respondents felt that a FIFA World Cup or Olympic Games provided the best opportunity to engage with female athletes. That varied from country to country. In China, 42 per cent of those surveyed highlighted the importance of a major event but that dropped to 29 per cent in Germany, where playing sport as a child was viewed as the most significant factor in engaging with women’s sport.
In the same survey, YouGov found that the women’s World Cup was the most recognisable female sporting event – by some distance. Hardly a surprise considering that football is the global game, but it also underlines what Ireland qualifying for next year’s competition might do for the game, and women’s sport in general, in this country. As successful as 20x20 campaign undoubtedly was in creating awareness around a whole new raft of role models, nothing beats actual success in the sporting arena. As we discovered last year.
A whole raft of role models for young girls in this country has been cultivated