Although popular among teenage girls, young women tend to lose interest in football, often because they feel marginalised at the nation’s clubs.
The Danish football association DBU has experienced a drop in young female members over the past five years, and a new project blames the clubs.
According to ‘Pigernes Stemme’ (‘The Girls’ Voices’), the sport prioritises the boys and marginalises the girls, who eventually leave the game despite having a desire to play football.
“Parameters such as the prioritisation of youth educations, along with the focus of clubs and the media on boys instead of girls, are significant factors that lead to girls unwillingly leaving the sport,” said Mette Bach Kjær, the head of girls’ and women’s football in DBU.
“Football is a male-dominated sport – based on the fact that there are five times as many male members than female. Therefore it will take a lot of work by the DBU and the local unions to help the clubs focus on the girls. We also need to promote a culture change in the media and society in general.”
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Little club and media focus
DBU has 20,000 registered female members aged 13-18, which makes football the most popular sport among teenage girls.
According to the Pigernes Stemme report, 40 percent of the girls feel that the club prioritises boys over girls, and that a lack of focus from the club has a direct influence on the girls wanting to keep playing. Around 66 percent said they have less desire to play because of that trend.
A further 81 percent said that they experience too little focus on women’s football in the traditional media and 65 percent said that the same was true on social media.
Some 40 percent of the girls said that they yearned for more social events at their clubs.
