Women in the Business of Sport 

It is impossible to pick up a newspaper, watch the TV news or turn on the radio without hearing of the breath-taking football transfer fees that are currently taking place in the so-called ‘transfer window’. Alongside these multi-million deals are also the most eye watering salaries. 

It is very hard to get your head around someone taking home over £200,000 every week, but still what feeling somewhat dissatisfied.

At the same time, we read and hear of the marvellous achievements of the England women’s national cricket team winning the recent World Cup, England women’s rugby union team reaching the World Cup final and England women’s football team reaching the semi-final of recent European championships, to name but a few.

The striking difference is no one ever mentions the salaries of these heroines of women sports! And we all know why?

This gender inequality has been brought to our attention yet again by the public reporting of salaries at the BBC. When even the public sector can see no reason to be meritocratic, then we really do have a huge problem on our hands. 

Andy Murray, the No.1 tennis player in the world has gone out of his way to campaign for equal pay for the leading women’s tennis players.  As Serena Williams says” We all love Andy for defending women’s issues”.

Our professional women football players would love to have the opportunity to “Spend It Like Beckham”, but how do we get there?

We at the Inspired Leaders Network believe it is high time that we stopped hiding behind historic pay scales and bring the right people together to crack this most contemporary and ugly issue.

As ever we at the Inspired Leader’s Network will ………. Keep an eye out for the announcement of the special panellists who will provide insights and a potential pragmatic way forward for this seemingly intractable problem.