Time to play ball
We need to encourage more young girls to get into team sports, says Women in Sport chief executive Stephanie Hilborne
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The Women’s Euro 2025 is about to erupt on our TV screens, with the BBC and ITV broadcasting matches in a way that nobody – even the pioneering women who had to fight to play the sport they loved – could have imagined. This summer, the BBC will also be broadcasting the Women’s Rugby World Cup. Elite women’s team sports are finally getting attention.
But on the ground, when it comes to team sport, it’s a different story. More than 50 years after the FA lifted its ban on women’s football, girls are still losing out. More boys than girls play team sports – 69 per cent of five-to-16-year-old boys compared to only 47 per cent of girls – according to Sport England. In England alone, that equates to around 900,000 girls who, had they been born a boy, would be experiencing the joys of this shared endeavour, but aren’t.
This is profoundly unfair and it matters more than ever. We know that the mental health of young women is in crisis. Sport is a joyful antidote and a powerful release from the anxiety plaguing so many – in fact, the origin of the word sport, “desport”, means to be carried away from responsibility.
Time spent on the football pitch, rugby field or netball court also prepares you for adult life in myriad and unexpected ways. You discover that if you fail, you’ll bounce back, and you develop resilience to face the trials and tribulations of life. You take risks. You learn how to respond when someone makes a mistake that costs your team. And if you’re lucky, you discover how to lead others.
1.3 million girls stop taking part in sport after primary school
So, with all these benefits – and after the Lionesses’ spectacular victory at the last Euros at Wembley in 2022 – why are we not where we should be today? The picture – with football at least – has improved. Over the past four years, the FA reports that the number of girls participating in the sport has more than doubled, from 1.2 million in 2021 to 2.7 million in 2025. But we’re up against a lot... Stereotyping is alive and well and starts the minute you’re born. We’ve all seen the little girl running along the wall and being told, “Get off that wall. You’ll get dirty, you’ll rip your dress.” And the boy? “Ah, look, he’s running on the wall!”
Sport isn’t valued for girls in the same way as it is for boys, so most girls have a skills deficit when they start school when it comes to throwing, catching, kicking and hitting a ball. On top of that, there’s a dearth of girls’ clubs and opportunities. If your daughter wants to play football, rugby, hockey or cricket, the chances are that she’ll have to play with the boys in mixed teams – an environment that only a few girls thrive in.
Stephanie Hilborne.
There also still aren’t enough opportunities for younger girls to play netball, a sport overlooked for too long: whereas snooker was on free-to-air TV from 1969 when black and white televisions were the norm, international netball matches weren’t on our screens until 2006, on Sky Sports.
With seven in ten girls saying they avoid being active on their period, and a lack of support for girls as they go through puberty, it’s not surprising that 1.3 million teenage girls stop taking part in sport after primary school. While things are changing, girls still tend to be steered away from team and ball sports.
There is, of course, tremendous joy to be had from individual sports such as running and cycling – and gymnastics and dance are incredible disciplines – but this should not displace team sport. Its shared joy and shared experience should be open to everyone.
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As the Women’s Euro 2025 kicks off and we prepare to watch the Women’s Rugby World Cup, I couldn’t be happier to see these fearless people on our screens. We must now start another much-needed revolution – the overhauling of grassroots team sports to finally meet girls’ needs.
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