Elite girl's football

[Freddieandclarasmum]

The FA is reorganising girls' football. Centres of Excellence are going and Regional Talent Clubs are being introduced. In the process most county run CoEs will disappear leaving a postcode lottery in its place - some area swill be super served and others will have nothing. There will be no elite football in the whole of Middlesex. In Surrey there will only be Chelsea which last year saw 500 girls apply for 2 places at U13 level. Boys don't seem to have this trouble (68 boys' academies v up to 35 for girls.) Please sign the petition for our girls and pass on. If you have experience of how the FA reorganisation will affect you - please let us know.
Thanks for reading,
Helen

I have signed. I think it is madness to restrict access to sport when there is an acknowledged obesity crisis. getting girls into fitness and keeping there is a huge problem and this just compounds it doesn't it. also think that by making the centres regional then the only girls that will be able to take part are those with parents who can afford the time and money to drive them around. it becomes elitist. good luck with it.

Can you put a link?

Sorry - here is the link - please sign and pass it on

Here's a link to the petition: www.care2.com/go/z/e/AUVXg/zoyY/CNjvl
And here's a link to share it on Facebook: www.care2.com/go/z/e/AUVXG/zoyY/CNjvl

Signed and shared. This is shocking. There was very limited access to football when I was a child and I ended up stopping. At my ripe old age I'm taking it up again, primarily to be a good role model for DD. I'm joining a local women's team that was forced to start again due to the lack of support from the the previous mens team it was affiliated with. This is something I also experienced as a teenager. How are girls supposed to be encouraged to access sport when this happens?

I've signed it. Where i live there is good access for girls into football at grassroots and elite level. It's a shame that isn't replicated thought the UK.

Thanks all. Would you believe it's the FA's girls football participation next week!

you only have to tune in to 5live the BBC's supposed sports channel to work out that around 99% of the sport that they talk about is men's sport. and then people wonder why girls and women don't participate. if all you hear is mens voices then is it any wonder.

The uneven playing field in girls footy is striking in terms of provision and attitude of some clubs. Luckily near us, that's beginning to change finally. Signed

Weird, I just clicked on the petition link and it says "petition closed". Only about 19 minutes after smellyboot signed it!

I play football even though I'm firmly middle aged.
There is still a huge gulf between male and female provision. I played at one club where during the winter men trained on Astro..coaches...equipment. The ladies trained on a 20ft by 80ft strip of land next to the clubhouse light by outside light on the building, coach turned up intermittently. and no equipment, we brought our own balls and the old fashioned goalposts...jumpers/bags
When I was a young girl/woman I wasn't aware of any clubs for women/girls nearer than 25 miles away. No chance of going there. I didn't play for over 25years.
Now I'm in heaven!

Helen can you be more specific as to what exactly you wish to achieve from this?

I only ask as I am very involved in football and it is a subject on the girls side I an interested in.

Feck - I hung up my boots about 10 years back, round about the age of 40 - but I remember that all too well. Women's football on a Sunday morning, pitch churned up by the men's match the previous day, no one turned out to unlock the showers because it was only a women's team, matches cancelled because we might cut the pitch up before the much more important men's match (we're talking a bunch of slightly podgy 30 something year olds, not the Premiership here!)

and this thread was started in april, so stinks of journalisticsm!

I didnt take it up again till I was 45!

your all talking about elite players, and yes I think this is a promo/journalist,

but unless you get girls of all abilities playing, you will never get the elite,

rarely will girls go alone. so you need to promote all girls football to find them,

I don't think everyone's talking about the elite players, Jammy, and I very much doubt it's a daily fail journo who's started this (women enjoying themselves playing football, girls excelling at football - in other words, women doing interesting and worthwhile stuff rather than standing around being awarded marks for what they wear and whether they have the right thigh gap - hardly standard side bar of shame fodder).

I totally agree that we need girls of all abilities playing football. And believe me, my footballing career was as far from elite as you can get. But you do need the facilities there for the really promising youngsters, to give them something to aim at, and the role models - the Lucy Bronzes and Fran Kirbys. And I've certainly noticed the women's game come on spectacularly since the advent of full time professional contracts so women don't have to fit their training round their day job.

So we need both - grass roots participation (I'd love to see more women play as I did, simply because it's a brilliantly enjoyable game, even if you're not very good at it), and the elite academies and opportunities for really good players.

I'm interested since my 12 year old daughter has been playing for Centres of Excellence since she was 8. She is passionate about football and dreams of being professional. I am upset (and so are the parents of her team-mates) that there are not going to be any accessible Regional Talent Clubs for us next season within west London (apart from Chelsea where 700 girls are chasing 3 places). We shall have to travel to Reading or further afield to Southampton.

Although the Premier League earns £2.6 BILLION a year from TV rights - only £14 million year is spent on the entire women's game from the Lionesses to grassroots. Put another way, for every £100 earned through TV rights (less than 54p is spent on the women's game and some of that comes from Sport England).

More money for girl's football and more academies are needed urgently!!!

I signed it ages ago before I saw this thread sorry. Or at least I'm sure it's the same one. I'm involved in girls football and we need more good clubs within a decent distance of travel. Where you get this, participation is high and growing. It's very patchy though

I was looking for some thing on girls football and found this thread. Personally I think to get charter standard, grassroots clubs should show a commitment to inclusion incl girls.

Lurcio I do think this is Journalistic, but I agree, we not all talking about Elite players,

In my experience, we have some really really good players who will happily give up playing as their mates can't play with them as their mates are not as good as they are, so they either have pushing parents who are living out their own dreams as they didn't have boys and are forced into playing, or quit.

So creating more Centre of Excellence and Talent Clubs is not going to encourage more female players, it need to be made easier for parents to get qualifications, as that is the main thing putting teams off, to meet the requirements, more online courses rather than the hours needed to get qualified.
Tbf that probably applies to boys as well.

The FA courses are changing in Aug anyway. If more clubs could afford to pay the fees, more parents would train as a L1.. But then that also relies on parents giving up their time which can apply to boys too...maybe more dads do it with their lads then with their girls..and then mums should too.
Ultimately it's needs all the good grassroots clubs to have a girls team or two and then more girls will play. They can then have the option of mixed or not.

option of mixed goes out the window at about school year 6/7,
girls are too conscience of themselves,
and to be honest below that age, if you have a girl that will play with boys she better be bloody good or they will not include her, not many,

the new FA course changes have been announced but no content has been disclose, poor info again,

We have lots that do play mixed but yes they tend to start to prefer girls once older. They say that girls play better as a team and pass more haha. We often play girls v boys too in training games and that teaches the boys that they are not always better....

I had a verbal a run down of L2 as I am interested as are others I know. It's modular and designed to be done with breaks in between sessions.