All’s well that ends well, and the respect afforded women in sport in Ireland is in a better place this morning than it was 36 hours ago.

Negotiations held under independent mediator and former trade union leader Peter McLoone broke up in Dublin this morning at just before half past three.

All of the issues raised by the players are reported to have been resolved though details of the final settlement have yet to be published.  The main elements revolved around the standards of treatment to be expected of an elite team and match payments to compensate for money foregone by players on international duty.

Senior players including Stephanie Roche and Julie Ann Russell spoke on social media in the early hours to confirm that talks had concluded, that they would return to training today and that Monday’s game against Slovakia would go ahead.

As we suggested in yesterday’s reporting of the arguments and how such a breakdown had arisen, all it needed was to sit around a table and talk it through.

Creating a Better Future for Women in Sport

In Irish Women’s Rugby it needed the mess of travel arrangements to Pau in 2012 to move the team from a box ticking exercise in equality to a group given proper treatment.  That group subsequently went on to a World Cup Semi Final, to Ireland hosting this year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup, to a crowd of over 6,000 at Donnybrook for the last Six Nations game against England on St Patrick’s night and to full live coverage of every game in the six nations on RTÉ this year.

Progress is rarely made along cultivated pathways.  This can be a moment for Women’s soccer that means more than the tracksuits.

It is though in the ordinary everyday that real change comes about.  There has been much indignation, well intentioned, across the media over the last two days.  People with a view on equality and the right of Women to be seen as equal in sport as they are in voting, in education and (getting there) in the workplace.

Those positive messages will have been rightly welcomed by the players but it would be of greater long term gain if those same people turned up at Tallaght Stadium on Monday afternoon for the Slovakia game, or if you are working and unable to do that to the Market Fields in Limerick tonight for the U19 teams’s crunch Euro Finals qualifier against Ukraine, or the Friendly against Iceland on Thursday, June 8th.

Don’t let’s allow the naysayers to point to vast swathes of empty seats and say ‘told you so, there’s no one interested.’

Don’t let this week’s brave stand by the players, and eventual common sense from the FAI, be nothing more than a firefly moment.

Instead let us hope that this is the spark that heralds real positive support not only from the football authorities but by the fans.

Now that will be a real positive step forward.

The third Sport for Business Women in Sport Conference will take place at UCD on Thursday November 30th.  Take a look and see if it is of interest for you to take part with us.