As Director at both Fair Game UK and Her Game Too, organisations set up to stamp out inequality in football, Natalie Atkinson is striving to make the nation’s favourite sport accessible and inclusive for all.
Speaking exclusively to GIS, she said: “Something I’m really passionate about, as are the Her Game Too Team, is tackling what football looks like off the field. As we know the women’s game is flourishing on the field, there’s more media exposure and commerciality which is great.”
Natalie added: “But what does it look like off the field? If you’re a female fan, and the makeup of your club isn’t representative of what’s happening on the terraces, then how can you have that affinity with your club.”
In fact, the defining mark of equality in the game, she says, is when discussions go beyond diversity on the pitch itself. After completing GIS’ CEO of a Sports Organisation programme last year, the former CEO of Southport and Curzon Ashton FC is seeking to redefine how to promote equality and instigate change within the football community.
She continued: “Diversity should not become a tick box; there has to be a point where we start to monitor and ask the questions around diversity, if that’s off the field, so in board rooms. There has to be a starting point, but we need to then look at that diversity being diversity of thought. Men, women, BAME, people with a disability, people from different cultures, people from different areas within the community, all being representative of that community hub that works with the club and becoming the board. More and more, we’re seeing changes to what board structures look like, but there’s still a long way to go.”
Find out more about GIS’ CEO of a Sports Organisation programme.
