Lewis Railton
In recent years, strides have been made in eradicating sexism as well as all other forms of prejudice in the world of football; this has resulted in the creation of charities as well as a notable language change to gender neutral terms, but are we doing enough?
Sexism in football is undoubtedly under the spotlight in recent times, as well as in many other communities. There is now a hunger to eradicate this from the game; with organisations such as Her Game Too, describing themselves as “a new campaign run by female football fans to raise awareness of sexist abuse in the game”; something which is clearly a predominant issue in recent society. This campaign was able to gain many impressions across a range of platforms gaining 10.8k retweets and over 1.8 million views since the launch in May; as well as receiving support from higher-ups within the game. In total, 50 professional football clubs have pledged their support for Her Game Too, of which include several EFL Championship clubs with a large stature in the English game. Including the highly popular football simulation game, Football Manager, gave the charity the opportunity to advertise on their game, which after a week of its full release saw over 20,000,000 sessions played. They also make the statement that “We want women and girls of all ages to feel confident and safe sharing their opinion about football both online and in real life without fear of sexist abuse;” a goal that we must achieve to make your local football stadium a safe place for all, but in reality we are still far from this.
As well as advertising the charity Her Game Too, Football Manager has introduced gender-neutral terms in their latest edition of their game, released on the 9th November. With male oriented terms for a number of positions such as “Target man” as well as “Anchor man” being substituted for “Target forward” and “Anchor”, Football Manager Director/Producer Miles Jacobson (pictured right) has shown a forward thinking and non discriminatory approach to his award winning game; with the huge stride of introducing women footballers into a future edition of the game being a long term plan announced earlier this year. Jacobson has also made positive decisions through his influential status in other discriminatory issues surrounding football including racism - an issue dating back many decades. Free advertising was also given to Show Racism The Red Card, a charity with a goal to fight injustice in the terraces. With these recent events, Miles Jacobson has established himself to be one of the leaders in ensuring positive change are put in place to avoid discrimination in football.
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