Women In Football’s annual conference takes place this week at Wembley Stadium, although it is developments across the Atlantic that pose a grave threat to the reforms that the network has been fighting for.
President Trump’s war on DEI has significantly shifted the conversation backwards, leading to big business rolling back initiatives and making it harder for those seeking greater representation for minorities to make their case.
That includes Women In Football, which represents hundreds of members working in the sport and whose CEO Yvonne Harrison calls the global picture “really alarming”.
“It is concerning that people think that because somewhere in the world somebody has said, ‘we don’t need to worry about this’, now we don’t need to worry about this,” she tells City AM.
“It misses the point completely in that more diverse teams lead to better performing businesses, whether that’s from a profitability point of view or actually a cultural point of view.
“It’s naive to think, ‘we don’t have to do that now’ and ‘it’s just box ticking’. It’s not, and there’s countless reports that we can draw upon, statistically valid and robust that would tell you that.
“To me, it’s worrying, and it also plays to a narrative, particularly within sport and football, of ‘they only got the job because they’re a woman or they’re a woman of colour. And actually that’s not the case, and it’s really disrespectful to women.
“The wider societal piece, in terms of EDI [as DEI is more commonly known in the UK] in particular, is really alarming. We have members who work in men’s football, members who work in women’s football, and people who work across both. And it’s really important that the narrative does not become, ‘you’re a woman, you can go and work in women’s football’.”
Even before Trump’s re-election as US president, equality campaigners had a job on their hands. A survey by WIF last year revealed that 89 per cent of women had experienced discrimination at work, of whom 60 per cent reported no action was taken.
“That is a worry, because that signifies the culture in our game is not what it needs to be,” adds Harrison, formerly managing director of David Beckham and Gary Neville’s Project 92 business.
“It takes a lot of courage for women to flag there’s an issue, and to actually report it in an employment setting.
“If you hear that somebody has done that and nothing’s happened, then perhaps you won’t report it yourself if something happens to you, and that’s a worry because then we’re not getting the true picture.”
Donald Trump has pushed back on DEI initiatives in the US
Football needs more senior roles for women
The incoming football regulator could include EDI targets in its club licensing operation, although it is not certain to do so. WIF is not taking sides in the ongoing debate of whether a regulator is needed or not, but wants a robust governance code for football.
“If there is to be a code, then it will be a travesty if there wasn’t provision around equality, diversity and inclusion,” Harrison says.
“As it stands, the only statistics we have to go on are that 10 per cent of Premier League board members and five per cent of EFL Championship board members or directors are women.
“We would love it to have a target, but if there wasn’t a target I think it’s really important that there is provision in there that you need to diversify the senior decision making positions.
“Because what we don’t want is a club’s senior leadership to be 10 per cent in 2025 and 10 per cent in 2030 – that is absolutely not what we want. We need progression.”
Harrison is encouraged that both the Football Association and Premier League have female chairs. While welcome, WIF’s mission is less about getting more women in the top jobs than increasing the number at leadership level and Harrison namechecks Brighton and Hove Albion and Arsenal as clubs making better decisions as a result.
“So much progress has been made in English football but clearly there’s more work to do, and I think it can be challenging,” she says. “The ownership groups of professional football clubs are what they are. Where real change can be made is at senior, executive committee level.”