“She deserves to get a fair crack of the whip the same as everybody else.”
Those words of Ulster GAA President Martin McAviney in today’s Irish Examiner are instructive when it comes to the logic of why Maggie Farrelly became the first woman to referee a senior men’s inter county match last night between Fermanagh and St Mary’s in the Dr McKenna Cup.
She was one of a number of first intake refs through the Ulster GAA Academy and McAviney made the point that he saw no difference between her and the other referees, other than in readiness to step up at this stage of her career.
She has already refereed an All Ireland Final in Ladies Football so there was no question she was going to be fazed by a smaller crowd in early January but it was still a step forward not for reasons of positive discrimination but on merit.
Sport for Business has long been an advocate of equality on merit. We are not special for doing so, merely looking for sport in its various forms to come up to the pace that society is already at.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has suggested that his next cabinet should he be re-elected might be 50:50 in terms of gender which would be a good thing if it is on merit.
In global terms there is a significant momentum building behind the idea of giving women greater opportunity to show their leadership skills at the highest levels of sport.
Yesterday the IAAF added two new members to it’s high profile ethics commission, both of whom are women. Catherine O’Regan is a South African judge and Annabel Pennefather is a lawyer from Singapore who has served as her country’s Chef de Mission at major games since 2002.
Women are leading the way in both the Los Angeles and Rome Bids to host the Olympic Games in 2024 because they are the best people for the job, not because of their gender.
Before Christmas we launched a survey of 40 national sporting organisations to discover how they stack up with regard to gender balance in leadership positions. So far we have received responses from 12. The results are mixed but at least show a willingness to accept the idea of parity of esteem.
We will be publishing the result of this survey as a benchmark in the coming weeks, giving those yet to reply the opportunity to do so.
The survey also includes a review of how they feel that women’s sport isa supported by fans, media and sponsors. It will make for interesting reading.
