At the beginning of this year, Reading Women’s Super League player Emma Mukandi shone a spotlight on her personal experience with the FA’s maternity policy, and in doing so encouraged a questioning of its validity in women’s football.
It is through this current policy that mothers are entitled to just 14 weeks of full pay, before being expected to return to a rigorous schedule of full-time training. That figure is almost half the amount of statutory maternity leave granted to the majority of female employees in the UK. This begs the question, are the FA truly doing everything they can to support mothers in football?
The Lionesses’ victory in the 2022 Euros has sparked a new interest in the game amongst young women, an atmosphere which the FA has assured they are committed to supporting. However, such poor attention to the issues that female footballers may face in their professional careers has a tendency to turn budding stars of the future away from the sport as they get older. As if the pay disparity and disrespectful attitude towards the female game is not enough to contend with!
The fact that these current maternity measures were not introduced until early 2022, all seems very little, very late. The changes came under much scrutiny following the initial announcement, with several MPs calling for sports minister Nigel Huddleston to review the government’s attitudes towards women’s football. This suggestion was not taken seriously, and so that criticism has not died down, with a number of female footballers highlighting the need for maternity support to go beyond maternity pay.
Undoubtedly, it should also be a priority for the FA to discuss the support available for mothers after those 14 weeks leave. Whilst larger clubs in the WSL, such as Chelsea and Arsenal, have both the finances and facilities to more fairly support individual mothers’ circumstances at their discretion, smaller clubs do not. This creates a disparity between women in the game.
Notably, this is an issue that goes beyond the FA, as highlighted through the experiences of American player Alex Morgan and Juventus midfielder Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir, whose recent lawsuit against Olympique Lyon gained much traction. It was through this successful outcome that the club were held accountable for withholding Gunnarsdóttir’s salary during her maternity leave. This sent a clear message to those larger clubs that taking advantage of maternity leave is no longer an acceptable option.
Whilst this issue is not at the forefront of British football, it is certainly one that deserves more attention. The future women of football deserve to be able to play in a safe and inclusive environment, without being hindered by poor patriarchal attitudes.
