Are you curious about the current state of women’s football in England? This article dives deep into the challenges and opportunities surrounding “Womens Football England,” providing insights into its growth, the unique hurdles faced by female athletes, and future prospects. Find reliable and easy-to-understand information about the Super League, maternity policies, and the overall evolution of this exciting sport at CAUHOI2025.UK.COM. This resource provides valuable context, in-depth analysis, and actionable takeaways related to female soccer, athlete contracts, and professional sports careers.
1. Introduction: The Rise of Women’s Football in England
Women’s football in England has witnessed remarkable growth, especially since the establishment of the Football Association (FA) Women’s Super League in 2011. This league marked a pivotal moment, offering elite female footballers a legitimate career path. However, the journey hasn’t been without its challenges. Despite the increasing professionalization, the voices and experiences of women in this field often remain unheard.
This article aims to shed light on the unique employment conditions of professional women footballers in England. It specifically explores gender-specific contractual requirements, particularly those related to maternity policies. The study considers how players interpret these policies and understand motherhood in the context of their contractual employment. The goal is to understand the distinct aspects of career development and the conditions women face as they enter this evolving profession. Moreover, the objective is to provide data-driven evidence to inform gender-specific policies, promoting more gender-equitable approaches within elite sports, especially concerning maternity.
1.1. The FA Women’s Super League: A Turning Point
The FA Women’s Super League (FA WSL) launched in 2011, creating the first widespread opportunity for elite women footballers in England to pursue their passion as a profession. Initially, a semi-professional summer league, the FA WSL aimed to provide a competitive and commercially viable product.
In 2018/2019, the league transitioned to a traditional winter season and fully professionalized into a 12-team competition. New criteria for teams included a minimum of 16 hours of contact per week for players, a minimum investment per club, an academy as part of the club, and financial fair play regulations including a salary cap (Garry, 2017).
1.2. The Need for Gender-Specific Policies
Despite progress, challenges persist, with FIFPro World Players’ Union noting a lack of “viable career paths and proper working conditions” in women’s football. Issues related to pay, contracts, and working conditions remain significant concerns.
According to FIFPro’s 2017 Global Employment Report, a staggering 50% of elite women footballers receive no pay, and almost two-thirds of those who do earn a salary make less than $600 per month.
1.3. Understanding User Search Intent
To provide comprehensive and targeted content, understanding user search intent is crucial. Here are five primary search intents related to women’s football in England:
- Information Gathering: Users seek general information about the FA WSL, its structure, and participating teams.
- Career Insights: Aspiring players and those interested in the industry look for information on how to become a professional women’s footballer in England.
- Maternity Policies: Current and prospective players search for details about maternity policies, contractual rights, and support for athlete mothers.
- Financial Aspects: Users are interested in the financial realities of women’s football, including salaries, sponsorships, and investment in the sport.
- Societal Impact: Individuals explore the broader societal implications of women’s football, including its impact on gender equality, representation, and female empowerment.
2. Football as Work: Examining the Professional Landscape
To contextualize the current state of women’s football in England, it’s important to examine the evolution of the sport as a professional occupation. While men’s professional football developed in the 19th century, the professionalization of women’s football is a more recent phenomenon.
2.1. Precarious Working Conditions
Despite the increasing professionalization of women’s football, adverse labor conditions persist. These conditions often manifest in issues related to pay, contracts, and overall working environment. According to FIFPro World Players’ Union (2020), in the women’s game “viable career paths and proper working conditions are still lacking”, and although the sport is increasingly professionalizing, “adverse labour conditions still plague the game.” This can be evidenced in research related to pay, contracts, and working conditions.
2.2. The Importance of Contracts
The sporting contract of an athlete is considered a necessary part of their career; as such, they have received increased scholarly attention in recent years (Kohe and Purdy, 2016). For the most part, contracts formalize the relationship between the athlete and the club. Athletes must not only perform in training and competitively, but also conform to organizational demands (Kohe and Purdy, 2016).
2.3. Short-Term Security and Financial Instability
Many elite women footballers face short-term security, financial precariousness, and inadequate resources. These circumstances significantly impact their athletic careers, leading to early retirement and difficult decisions about motherhood.
Individualized risk biographies (Beck, 2000) mean uncertainties, such as injury or pregnancy costs, which are borne by the individual rather than the employer or the state (Sennett, 2006).
3. Professional Women Athletes, Motherhood, and Maternity
The intersection of professional sports, motherhood, and maternity presents unique challenges for women athletes. The number of professional women footballers who are mothers remains notably low.
3.1. The Incompatibility Perception
Globally, data from FIFPro World Players’ Union (2017) state that from 3,295 women footballers surveyed, only 2% of respondents were mothers and 47% felt they would have to leave the game early to start a family. The report highlights that 61% of women players are offered no childcare support, only 8% of players who had children by 2017 were provided maternity pay from their National Governing Body or their club, and only 3% of clubs provided childcare support (FIFPro World Players’ Union, 2017).
3.2. The Need for Standardized Benefits and Protections
FIFPro World Players’ Union emphasizes the need for standardized benefits and protections to support players who choose to become mothers. Addressing this issue is crucial for creating a more equitable and inclusive environment.
3.3. Lack of Female Representation in Decision-Making
The underrepresentation of women in decision-making positions in sports contributes to the challenges faced by female athletes. A critical mass of women on boards is needed to influence organizational policies and ensure that the experiences of women are not overlooked.
According to Adriaanse (2016), a critical mass of 30% of women on boards must be achieved in order to influence the organisation. Importantly, from 45 countries analysed, only four achieved critical mass.
4. Motherhood, Contracts, and Policy
Contracts and policies play a significant role in reconciling the work-life experiences of women athletes. Increasingly, maternity is being placed on the agenda for sports organizations.
4.1. Removing the Stigma
Efforts must be made to remove the negative stigma attached to utilizing maternity policies. Women who take maternity leave should not face negative perceptions or hinderance to their career progression.
Morgenroth and Heilman (2017, p. 56) note that: “Women who chose to take maternity leave were viewed as having work/family priorities that conformed to descriptive gender stereotypes and suffered in their work-related evaluations, and women who chose not to take maternity leave were viewed as having work/family priorities that violate prescriptive gender stereotypes and suffered in their family-related evaluations.”
4.2. The Impact of Family-Friendly Policies
The creation and implementation of family-friendly policies can have a positive effect on organizations. Universal support for families, such as childcare and paid family leave, are common throughout Western Europe (Hegewisch and Gornick, 2011).
4.3. Addressing Challenges to Training and Recovery
Challenges to training and recovery, a lack of institutional support, and reductions in sponsorship contribute to the notion that athletehood and motherhood are incompatible within sports (Tekavc et al., 2020).
5. Professional Football and Women’s Bodies
The demands of professional sports place significant reliance on the athlete’s body. Women athletes often face pressure to conform to both an athletic ideal and a feminine ideal.
5.1. Body Monitoring and Surveillance
A career in football is considered to be highly focused on body monitoring (Roberts, 2018) and intense in its approach to quantification, accountability, and surveillance (Roderick et al., 2017). Consolidating a position within the starting 11 can be considered a high priority for all professional footballers. In this way, uncertainty is a central feature in the lives of professional footballers, with career advancement never secure; thus, these players are operating in a hazardous career, whereby are only as good as their last game (Roderick, 2006) and physical capital is central to their work.
5.2. Risk of Occupational Destitution
Footballers depend heavily on their embodied assets and are prone to occupational destitution through the erosion of their bodily capital (McGillivray et al., 2005). This includes intense practices of eating, sleeping, and resting to ensure bodily care. In this sense, motherhood, and family life, with its impact including a reduction in time spent resting and training (Tekavc et al., 2020), is in conflict with the expectations of football clubs and significant others (coaches, managers, and agents) who largely influence the careers of players.
5.3. Reluctance to Voice Opinions
Outside of sports, efforts have been made to explain the reluctance of employees to voice their opinions on important issues such as workplace marginalization through policy (Manley et al., 2016). Women have the additional bind of the expectation that they are grateful for the opportunity to operate in professional sports settings, no matter how unsatisfactory they are (Culvin, 2019; Pavalidis, 2020; Taylor et al., 2020).
6. Research Findings: Employment Contracts and Maternity Policy
All industrialized countries have work-family policies in place to support work-family reconciliation; however, the nature and extent of support vary greatly between countries and organizations (Hegewisch and Gornick, 2011).
6.1. Maternity as a Low Priority
In relation to the contractual maternity policy in professional women’s football in England, most players indicated that maternity is low on the list of priorities of clubs despite any legal and moral obligations. Many players were unsure of their contract type and the support it offered in terms of economic remuneration.
6.2. The Contradiction of Short Contracts and Maternity
For some players, the contradiction of short contracts and maternity poses a clear problem and demonstrates the challenges women footballers face in navigating their obligations to their clubs and their opportunity to have children.
For this player, the contradiction of short contracts and maternity poses a clear problem and demonstrates the challenges women footballers face in navigating their obligations to their clubs and their opportunity to have children. For other players, a lack of education on the issue of contracts and maternity policy was a concern, alongside the low prioritisation of maternity within clubs.
6.3. PFA’s Role and Support
The Professional Footballers Association (PFA), established in 1907, is the world’s longest established professional sportspersons union. The PFA states its experience ensures the best advice, representation, and assistance in all aspects of the career of a player and beyond. It is clear that women footballers require employment policies specific to their own games inbuilt within contracts.
7. Navigating Professional Football and Motherhood: A Complex Journey
Pregnancy and motherhood can impact the career of an athlete in complex ways (Appleby and Fisher, 2009), and, in sum, many participants felt that being an athlete-mother was incompatible with being a professional footballer. Many participants felt that being an athlete-mother was incompatible with being a professional footballer.
7.1. Trust and Support
Players do not trust clubs to support them contractually in family endeavors, which appears to lead to a mistrust of clubs and staff as articulated by one senior international. The short-term contracts in which they operate do not support their needs in this way.
It appears taken-for-granted that women footballers will not have children whilst they are playing competitively, as exemplified by a senior international.
“Literally, no idea (whether maternity policy is included in the contract). I mean, I think it’s cos of the environment they don’t expect things to happen like that? They do happen. Same as pregnancy – like we’re women, some of us are gonna get pregnant, that’s how it works. And I just don’t think… especially, and I don’t wanna disrespect, but in a male environment, they don’t expect that. They don’t think of the worst. Then when it happens it’s like ‘shit I didn’t expect that!’ and it’s like, well half your team have boyfriends that have been together for years, some way down the line that’s gonna happen and that’s how life is. (Interview 17).”
7.2. Concerns Over Policy
Despite the mixed feelings towards the compatibility of their career and motherhood, it is clear that the omission of maternity and childcare policy within club contracts is highly concerning. In regards to maternity cover as a policy, central contracts issued by the FA to 30 elite senior internationals are renewed annually. A key problem is the restrictive capacity of annual renewal, based on performance, could actively discourage players from considering children due to the short-term nature of the contracts and their emphasis on performance.
7.3. Career Prospects
Professional women footballers are operating in an occupation that offers them very little security and is tangled up in contracts whereby they are considered as assets. The triad of concerns here includes women appearing complicit in their own subordination; examining who’s responsibility is to offer moral and legal security to professional women footballers; and studying the consequences of insufficient contractual policies to support players.
8. Motherhood and Athletes’ Bodies: Impact and Perceptions
While professional football contracts and policies were described as incompatible with motherhood, for some, the perceived mismatch of motherhood and athletehood were related to the impact on their bodies.
8.1. Physical and Practical Considerations
Moreover, the gendered practical considerations of an occupation imbued by long periods away from home, inflexible working hours, and little control over relocation are all further evidence of a perceived incompatibility. Some interviewees acknowledged concerns with losing their “feel for the game,” that is to say, perceived diminished capital through an extended period out of football. Within the field of professional football, research suggests that physical capital is of particular value (McGillivray and McIntosh, 2006).
8.2. The Pressure to Look Athletic
“Looking the part” demonstrates the importance players attribute to legitimacy in the football field and how they embody their new career, giving further credence to the perceived incompatibility of motherhood as women typically report average weight retention of 0.5 to 4 kg, a year after pregnancy (Bø et al., 2016), although elite athletes are more likely to regain their pre-pregnancy body weight (Bø and Backe-Hansen, 2007).
8.3. Issues of Control and Scrutiny
Players are expected to deal with high levels of intense scrutiny and loss of control over their bodies, leading to a highly regulated culture of surveillance. One predominant area of concern with the highly regulated culture of surveillance is the control over athletes’ bodies and personal freedoms. The imposition of body fat testing, body shaming, the treatment of players’ professional bodies, and its effects are exemplified in the next extract from a youth international:
“We do body fat testing and the information got sent to the board! How is that information getting sent to the board? They wanna know that the investment is worth it! […] I’d put on a little bit but was playing better but the coach had to write an email to the board saying why I had put on x amount of fat” (Interview 4).
9. Discussion: Key Findings and Future Directions
This study has sought to provide evidence for the distinctiveness of career development and the gender-specific contractual conditions and requirements of women entering the profession of football. Women’s football in England has undergone significant transformations in the last decade, with the reorganisation of the game from amateur to professional, creating the opportunity for football as work for women. However, women footballers are not afforded the same luxuries as their male counterparts in terms of contractual security, employment conditions, and economic renumeration.
9.1. Lack of Support
Women footballers have reported a lack of support with regard to maternity and childcare (FIFPro World Players’ Union, 2017; McElwee, 2020). From one situation to the next, one player to another there appeared to be an ad-hoc and arbitrary approach to contractual agreements of women. For some players the professionalisation process being subjugated by a patriarchal composition (Woodhouse et al., 2019).
9.2. Awareness
It is crucial to point out that, if maternity and parental policy were part of player contracts, it is not certain that women would utilize the policy because concerns over their bodies are very real, which further highlights how athletes view motherhood and athletehood as incompatible (Dixon et al., 2008; Burton, 2015). This is also despite a growing trend in gender-equitable policy and the increased verbal and symbolic prioritisation of policies including those in relation to maternity in football (FIFPro World Players’ Union, 2020).
9.3. Recommedations
We suggest three specific ways in which women athletes can be included in professional sports. First, further research should be conducted more broadly by both researchers and organizations to explore and identify the best practices for professional women’s teams. Second, another way is the development of a gender-specific framework that includes expected contractual conditions, including the rejection of pregnant women athletes as individualized, one-off success storys. Third, the last way is the advocation of the compatibility of motherhood and athletehood through organizations, such as FIFPRO and individual unions and clubs.
10. FAQ: Common Questions About Women’s Football in England
Q1: What is the FA Women’s Super League?
A1: The FA WSL is the top tier of women’s football in England, established in 2011 to create a professional and competitive league.
Q2: What are the main challenges faced by women footballers in England?
A2: Key challenges include lower pay, precarious contracts, inadequate maternity policies, and a lack of female representation in decision-making roles.
Q3: Are maternity policies common in women’s football contracts?
A3: Historically, maternity policies have been lacking in many contracts, though there’s increasing pressure for standardization and better support.
Q4: How does motherhood impact a professional footballer’s career?
A4: Motherhood can impact a footballer’s career due to physical changes, time away from training, and societal expectations.
Q5: What role does FIFPro play in supporting women footballers?
A5: FIFPro advocates for fair working conditions, standardized maternity benefits, and protection against discrimination for female athletes.
Q6: How can organizations better support women athletes who are mothers?
A6: By implementing comprehensive maternity policies, providing childcare support, and creating a more inclusive and equitable environment.
Q7: What is the PFA’s role in advocating for women’s football?
A7: The PFA aims to provide advice, representation, and assistance to players but needs to tailor its support to address the specific needs of women footballers.
Q8: How does the pressure to maintain a certain body image affect women footballers?
A8: The pressure can lead to unhealthy preoccupations with weight, disordered eating, and a loss of autonomy over their bodies.
Q9: What is being done to address the gender pay gap in English football?
A9: Efforts include increased investment in the women’s game, higher minimum standards for clubs, and advocacy for equal pay.
Q10: How can fans support the growth of women’s football in England?
A10: By attending matches, watching games on TV, supporting sponsors, and advocating for gender equality in sports.
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Conclusion: The Future of Women’s Football in England
While the journey is ongoing, the increasing recognition of the unique needs and challenges faced by women athletes signals a promising future. By addressing these issues, promoting gender equity, and fostering a supportive environment, women’s football in England can continue to thrive and inspire generations to come.
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