Sports governing bodies face funding cuts if they fail to meet UK Sport and Sport England’s targets of one in four female board members by 2017, according to Sue Tibballs, chief executive of the Women’s Sports and Fitness Foundation.
The sports funding agencies have promised to ask “hard questions” if targets are not met, though have so far been reluctant to threaten sanctions. But Tibballs believes that coercive measures are now “absolutely essential” to ensure progress.
“There have been exhortations for years and years and very little has changed, so we know that appealing to the better judgment of these sports on its own doesn’t get us to where we need to be,” she said. “This is public money that everyone in the community is contributing to. Those sports have to serve and represent the whole community and at the moment their governance structures aren’t, so our very strong view is that if they do not comply they should not be funded. Sport England have started to take money away, not around governance, but if sports haven’t been meeting the targets, so there is precedence in withdrawing funds and we would strongly urge them to keep that up and take it further.”
WSFF this year published a list of sports governing body boards, including British Cycling, which has no female board members and yet receives £24.7m from Sport England, and the Football Association and the Rugby Football Union, with 6% women board members, who receive £25.7m and £28.7m respectively. The England and Wales Cricket Board receives £35.3m funding but has only 14% female board members, while even mixed gender sports such as athletics and tennis have unrepresentative boards at 11% and 17% women, despite high levels of public funding – UK Athletics receives £20.6m while the LTA gets £24.5m.
To find out more click here; http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/nov/03/governing-bodies-cuts-more-women
