In this week’s Women in Sport Weekly, supported by our partnership with Lidl, we look back on a tough week for Women’s rugby, the latest additions to our 50 Women of Influence list, the Euro 23 Hockey Qualifiers coming to Dublin and more…
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TOUGH WEEK FOR WOMEN’S RUGBY
The Irish Women’s Rugby team take on the United States at the RDS this evening. It should have been the start of a build-up to next year’s Rugby World Cup, a joyous homecoming where actual and potential young players could have been in the stands and been inspired.
Instead, it comes at the end of a week where the commitment of the IRFU to the Women’s game has been questioned and media comments, on mainstream and social, have been analysed, sliced and diced in minute detail.
There has been a lot of blame thrown around but the hard discussions would perhaps have been better served in private…
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TWO CEO’S AND TWO FROM THE WORLD OF GOLF
Our listing of 50 Women of Influence in Irish Sport, in partnership with AIG, continued through the week with Helen O’Rourke and Sinead McNulty, CEO’s of the LGFA and Camogie Association alongside Fiona Hampton and Leona Maguire as the last week’s additions.
Who do you think we should recognise for their impact on sport?
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UEFA PLAYMAKERS ON THE MARK
The FAI was selected by UEFA to be one of the first national associations to trial an innovative approach to engaging young girls in football.
In Partnership with the best in the business, the UEFA Disney Playmakers Programme has not unsurprisingly been a hit.
800 girls five to eight-year-olds have taken part in 29 clubs across the country and the hope is that the experience was one that will turn them into lifelong players and fans.
The true success of this can only be measured over time but the resources are there to track the player’s life in football like never before.
Playmakers employs an innovative storytelling approach featuring Disney characters to help more girls see the fun in regular physical exercise and football.
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SKY IRELAND’S INVESTMENT IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND WOMEN’S TEAM
We caught up with Neal Cummins, Head of Communications at Sky Ireland to talk about the origins, the initial success and the future plans for Sky Ireland’s partnership with the Republic of Ireland Women’s National Team.
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EURO QUALIFIERS COMING TO DUBLIN
Ireland will host the women’s 2022 EuroHockey Championship qualifier event next summer between August 21st and 27th.
The tournament is new on the international calendar with the winners qualifying for the top tier of European action in 2023 in Monchengladbach. That tournament, in turn, will potentially offer a high quota of Olympic qualifying berths.
Aside from the winners earning their ticket to the top table, the second and third-placed finishers in each tournament will play in the 2023 EuroHockey Trophy; the fourth and fifth sides going to the third tier with the remaining teams going into the fourth tier.
No decision has been made yet on where the games will be played.
UCD’s Belfield pitch and that at the Sport Ireland Campus are both at the required standard to host international tournaments. The last major tournament to be held here took place in Banbridge in 2019.
Energia Park in Donnybrook is another option with a rolled out pitch as was the case for the Olympic Qualifiers that were played in November 2019 before two sell out crowds that were larger than could be accommodated in the regular hockey arenas.
The 12th ranked Irish women will be the top seed for their event taking on Poland (27th), the Czech Republic (24th), Turkey (33rd) and Finland (unranked).
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FIVE BIDS TO HOST EURO 2025 FINALS
UEFA HAS received five declarations of interest representing eight member associations to host the UEFA European Women’s Championship Final Tournament in 2025.
A joint declaration of interest was received from the member associations of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The member associations of France, Poland, Switzerland and Ukraine also declared their interest in bidding.
The bidding procedure for the selection of the venues to host the final tournament was launched in July 2021. The deadline for the submission of the bid dossiers is in October 2022, and the UEFA Executive Committee will select the successful host association(s) in December 2022.
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Each week we carry a Women in Sport Weekly Column, highlighting stories here in Ireland and around the world that are relevant to the idea that we are only catching up to what is happening elsewhere and that while we may be strong in some areas, there are certainly others where we need to prod and poke to ensure fairness.
That’s all, it’s not a takeover, it’s not at the expense of sport that is there already, it is just recognition that sport should be more conscious of its obligation to the 50.5 per cent of the population that has just as much right and talent to play sport as anyone.
If you think there is a story around Women in Sport that we should feature please get in touch and let us know.
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