Arsenal's Kelly Smith calls on FA to 'show girls they can make it in football’

Inspiration: Kelly Smith
Glenn Copus©
David Churchill11 October 2016

Arsenal Ladies and former England forward Kelly Smith has hit out at the Football Association for only having one woman board member and said more were needed to reflect the increase in young female footballers.

Smith, 37, one of the world’s leading female players, said it was not enough that Heather Rabbatts, who became the first woman on the FA board in 2012, was still the only one among 11 members.

Smith, who scored 46 goals for England in 117 appearances, said a change at the top would give a new generation the “inspiration” of knowing that women could land top jobs through hard work.

“I don’t think it’s enough that there’s only one lady on the FA board, there needs to be more,” she said.

“I would like to see more women in all areas of the game. I think it would help the game tremendously, just with the experience women have. You shouldn’t have to be male and of an older generation to get a top job. If young girls can also see there’s people in high places, it will give them inspiration to work hard and know that it is reachable.

“Karren Brady is a good example of a very good businesswoman who has done well at West Ham and I think we need more leaders like that.” She spoke as figures were released showing girls’ participation in the flagship nationwide FA Skills programme had soared 63 per cent in the past year.

It means girls make up 25 per cent of all participants in the five- to 11-year-olds programme, compared with nine per cent a year ago. More than 1,230 girls now take part in the weekly after-school sessions, up from fewer than 800. The rise comes after the FA launched its official grassroots partnership with supermarket Lidl, enabling it to roll out girls-only training sessions.

But Smith, who is working towards her coaching badges for when she retires, added that the women’s game had suffered for not having a team at the Rio Olympics.

Smith, from Watford, who won the FA Women’s Players’ Player of the Year in 2006 and 2007, blamed “scaremongering” chiefs for playing “politics”.

The Lionesses did not compete in Rio after the English FA was unable to reach agreement with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish FAs, which thought putting players forward for an Olympics Team GB would threaten their status as nations within Fifa.

Smith said: “It’s frustrating. It was another opportunity to sell the women’s game with millions watching.”

She said it was crucial to try to field teams in Tokyo 2020 as research by Lidl showed parents were still five times more likely to encourage sons to play football than daughters. Opinion Matters interviewed 1,004 parents of five- to 16-year-olds for the supermarket.

An FA spokesman said: “We’re keen on helping more women reach boardroom positions right across the game. We have just launched a women’s leadership programme with 10 women from across clubs, county FA’s and federations.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in