The chief executive of UK Athletics has vowed to dismantle the “jobs for the boys” network and to radically change the culture in the sport so that more women coaches succeed at the highest level.
Jo Coates, who took over at UKA last year, made the pledge after a Leeds Beckett University report suggested there was a “closed shop” in athletics – with decisions made informally by and for men, who also got most of the top positions, leaving women feeling “powerless”.
Some of the 17 anonymous female coaches interviewed for the study also revealed incidences of sexual harassment, with one detailing how a male colleague had picked her up in front of other coaches on a course over drinks and said to her: “Have you ever been shagged like this? You’re really light.”
Another female coach said she had been subject to rumours that she had sexual relationships with her support stuff – while, on another occasion, a group of male coaches undermined her by shouting instructions to her elite athlete.
Coates said that the culture was already shifting, but accepted more needed to be done. “I’ve been a woman working in male dominated sport for years and I’ve faced similar comments to those flagged up in the report,” she said. “These networks must fade away or be dismantled. I can’t bear it – I have spent my life trying to change it.”
Coates said that several women had been encouraged to stand for the vacant roles of UKA’s head of sprints and relays, and the head of endurance, and stressed that her performance director, Sara Symington, had also sat in on those interviews.
A total of 1,385 women have the basic athletics coaching certificate, compared with 3,257 men, according to the academics - while when it comes to the highest qualification, only 38 women have it, compared with 300 men. Coates said it showed women needed more educational opportunities and to feel more comfortable in order to climb the ladder.
“It’s not about creating more females within coaching, it’s ensuring that when major roles come up, women feel very comfortable coming forward because they know they’ll be treated the same,” she said. “It’s about having the right education framework in place that makes sure everybody gets to a standard. And it’s about women feeling able to come to forward if their treatment hasn’t been right. I don’t hope it’ll be different in five years’ time, I know it’ll be different. Otherwise I won’t have done my job.”
However, the Leeds Beckett report was greeted with scepticism by some in the sport. One critic said that its claim that 207 men and not a single woman had been chosen for UK Athletics teams over the past decade was not entirely fair, as the same handful of people had received the accreditations to each competition.
Another senior figure pointed to the number of prominent women coaches in the Paralympic programme – including the head coach, Paula Dunn – as evidence that athletics was a sport where women could succeed. One senior women’s coach also said she had not been asked for her views by Leeds Beckett and the report’s findings did not reflect her experiences in the sport.
