The Gendered Effects of COVID-19 on Elite Women's Sport

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 prompted widespread global lockdowns as the world looked to contain and reduce the impact of the virus, including a pause on most sporting competitions (Parnell et al., 2020). Covid-19 has greatly affected the world, exposing stark inequalities, especially across gendered lines, in areas of society such as the labour market, domestic responsibility, and economic hardship (Alon et al., 2020). Sport is a crucial, interwoven aspect of society and like wider societal trends, elite women's sport has been adversely affected by the pandemic, facing an existential threat (Bowes et al., 2020; Clarkson et al., 2020a;Rowe, 2020). The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of how the pandemic is negatively impacting a wide variety of elite women's sports. Specifically, we cover sports where women have traditionally existed on the margins of the sport and could be considered as male-dominated labour industries. Centring primarily on the United Kingdom (UK), we present a brief chronology of the impact of the crisis on elite women's sport, across football, rugby, cricket and golf -in many ways different to the men's versions -spanning the eight months since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 until the time of writing in November 2020.Throughout, the chapter utilises qualitative data from elite sportswomen encouraged to share their experiences during the pandemic (see Bowes et al., 2020). Subsequently, this chapter concludes with a summary of the challenges for women operating in (semi-)professional sports environments.

Money troubles and problems ahead? The financial health of professional women's football clubs in England

“…, 2022b) and would have greatly skewed our longitudinal analyses and therefore financial health assessment. The pandemic has increased financial pressure conditions felt in women's sport, as noted by Clarkson et al . (2021b) and Clarkson et al .…”

“…The pandemic has greatly threatened elite women's football (Clarkson et al, 2022b) and would have greatly skewed our longitudinal analyses and therefore financial health assessment. The pandemic has increased financial pressure conditions felt in women's sport, as noted by Clarkson et al (2021b) and Clarkson et al (2022a). Clubs will be recouping losses from the FA cancelling the 2019-2020 season for which the TV deal will have mitigated in the short term.…”

Media Framing of Women’s Football During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Therefore, greater understanding of how the media framed women’s football during the COVID-19 pandemic is required for several reasons. First, COVID-19 has laid bare gender inequalities (Pavlidis & Rowe, 2021) and, of particular interest to this study, the inequitable treatment of women’s sport by institutions when compared to men’s sport (Bowes et al, 2020; Clarkson et al, 2021). Given the comparatively short time since the global pandemic was declared by the World Health Organisation in early 2020, little research has yet analysed how the media have framed this inequality.…”

An institutional analysis of gender (in)equalities, COVID-19 and governance of elite women's football in Australia, England and the USA

“…This is exacerbated by traditional views on the “superiority” of men's sport (Allison, 2018) and resistance to change at a governance level (Parry et al , 2021). These difficulties in the way that women's sport can be viewed by NGBs has made maintaining gender equality in the pandemic extremely difficult (Clarkson et al , 2021). Yet NFAs have a responsibility to protect overshadowed areas of football; FIFA recently committed $1.5bn in its Covid Relief Plan with NFAs able to apply for $1m to protect and restart football and an additional $500,000 available specifically spent for women's football (FIFA, 2020a).…”