Alan Hubbard: Girl Power to come to the fore in 2015

We are barely into 2015 yet there is growing evidence that Girl Power - a trite phrase but nonetheless a pertinent one - will be an increasingly influential aspect of sporting life in the year ahead, on and off the playing field.

Already, we have seen how Sport England's admirable This Girl Can campaign, masterminded by chief executive Jennie Price, is having an impact on getting women who may not normally be so inclined to do more sport and exercise, with six million plays on Facebook of the compelling commercial that grabbed the attention of viewers during a Coronation Street ad-break last week.

We also witnessed the Youth Sport Trust's chair Baroness Sue Campbell forcefully reminding politicos that the losing battle between the PlayStation and the playing field among schoolchildren must be urgently addressed by the next Government.

Now this week, two more of British sport's female twin strikers, Sports Minister Helen Grant and Football Association (FA) Board member Heather Rabbatts, both themselves black, have teamed up to address the issue of the worrying lack of coaches and administrators from the ethnic minorities in football.

Key figures from the game have been summoned to a summit meeting at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and pressed about what football is doing to encourage greater diversity.

Not enough, we fear.

Around one in four professional football players are from Black, Asian, Minority, Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. However, as Grant and Rabbatts point out, that is not reflected elsewhere in the game.

"There are very few BAME coaches coming through the ranks and landing top coaching positions at professional clubs, while there is also a lack of BAME people at senior Governance and administration positions in football," Grant tells us.

As well as women of course.

Significantly it is women themselves who have taken up the crusading cudgel on behalf of sport, thus building on the female achievements of London 2012 and their continuation since.

It is worth recording that there is a welcome escalation of women in key sports posts. Apart from a female Sports Minister committed to championing the cause of sporting emancipation for women, the chief executive posts at both Government quangos, Sport England and UK Sport are occupied by women - Price and Liz Nicholl respectively.

The former tennis star Debbie Jevans, one of Lord Coe's leading ladies in his 2012 Olympics team, is now arguably the most important female figure in sport this year as she is responsible for organising the rugby union World Cup. And you won't find a more macho environment than that - unless it is at the FA.

There, Rabbatts is the only woman on the Board though there are those among us who would like to see the ever-feisty and formidable former lawyer and film producer, once chair of Millwall, installed as the new chief executive. Sadly this would seem a step too far for the old boys' brigade who purportedly run the show.

Belgian lawyer Katrien Meire is another of the rare breed in the male-dominated world of football - joining (Lord) Sugar babe Karren Brady (aka Baroness Brady of Knightsbridge), the West Ham vice-chair, Sunderland's Margaret Byrne, and Mansfield Town's Carolyn Radford as female powers in the boardroom.

More women stalking sport's corridors of power include other former Coe aides Emma Boggis, now chief executive at the Sport and Recreation Alliance, and the 2012 communications chief Jackie Brock-Doyle, a top PR troubleshooter who came to the rescue of both UK Commonwealth Games in Manchester and Glasgow. She is now chief executive of Chime Communications-owned PR network Good Relations.

Nicola Sapstead is interim chief executive of UK Anti-Doping following the departure of Andy Parkinson to British Rowing where Annamarie Phelps has succeeded Di Ellis as one of the few chairpersons of an Olympic sport.

Debbie Jevans is now arguably the most important female figure in sport this year as she is responsible for organising the rugby union World Cup ©Getty Images

The redoubtable Louise Martin is chair of Sportscotland; former Welsh hockey captain Sarah Powell is now the first female chief executive of Sport Wales.

Even boxing has a female representation at administrative level, with Charlotte Leslie MP, chair of the sport's All-Parliamentary Group, a steward of the British Boxing Board of Control, together with Baroness Golding and Dame Mary Peters.

All very commendable. But what about getting more women digging away the grass roots?

Tackling the shortage of women participating in sport is what Price says the £10 million ($15.2 million/€13.1 million) investment in the This Girl Can campaign is designed to do.

The gap between men and women playing sport and exercising regularly is around two million, with females aged 16 lagging behind their male counterparts by almost 20 per cent.

Research conducted by Sport England shows that 75 per cent of women aged between 14 and 40 wanted to exercise more but were being held back by fears of how they are perceived while exercising and playing sport.

"What we've got to do is make more women feel more comfortable," Price tells insidethegames. "A lot of this is about confidence and worrying about being judged. When you're a teenager or in your early 20s, you are much more worried about what others think of you than when you get that bit older."

Prior to joining Sport England in 2007, Price, was in the recycling business as the founding chief executive of Waste & Resources Action Programme which was established by Government in 2000 to improve the UK's recycling performance and reduce waste.

Now she advocates not recycling but cycling - as well as swimming, running, punching the bag - anything that makes women sweat, or if they prefer the phrase, perspire.

The campaign doesn't hold back in trying to encourage women to beat their barriers. "Sweating like a pig, feeling like a fox" and "I kick balls, deal with it" are among the hard-hitting lines used in the campaign to prompt a change in attitudes and help boost women's confidence.

Jennie Price, chief executive of Sport England, says the money invested into the This Girl Can campaign is designed to tackle the shortage of women participating in sport
©Getty Images

"The figures on participation are crystal clear," says Price. "There is a significant gender gap, with two million more men than women exercising or playing sport regularly. I believe we can tackle this gap, because our research shows that 75 per cent of women would like to do more.

"Before we began this campaign, we looked very carefully at what women were saying about why they felt sport and exercise was not for them. Some of the issues, like time and cost, were familiar, but one of the strongest themes was a fear of judgement.

"Worries about being judged for being the wrong size, not fit enough and not skilled enough came up time and again. Every single woman I have talked to about this campaign - and that is now 100s - has identified with this, and it is that fear of not being 'good enough' in some way, and feeling you are the only one who feels like that, that we want to address.

"Women are always told it is unladylike to sweat. But it can be fun when it helps get you fit. Exercise and enjoy it is the message.

"When you look at how sport and exercise for women have been portrayed it has been airbrushed. It always seems to be done by women who are amazingly fit and proficient but this is not always the norm.

"It is ok for sportsmen to look hot and sweaty because for them that is what sport is all about. But not women.

"So one of the things I wanted to do was create images of women of all shapes and sizes exercising. I know what it is like to be judged. I know what it is like to think 'I am not fit enough to go into that gym, so I can go at it from a more empathetic perspective."

The 90-second video aimed at eliminating any feminine fear of sport, is being screened repeatedly over the coming weeks and has already had what Price says is 'fantastic feedback' via social media both here and in several other countries including the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

She claims Sport England's £10 million ($15.2 million/€13.1 million) investment, which has Government backing, is no vanity project but a much-needed campaign to get the nation - or a important part of it - back on its feet.

Hopefully it will also help to show that women's sport has moved on apace from the Women's Lob slogan of the sixties, 'You've Come A Long Way Baby', demonstrating that 2015 is the year when These Girls Can.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for the Independent on Sunday and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.