Source · Select Committees · Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 10
10
Acknowledged
Paragraph: 76
Slow response to women's ACL injuries indicates systemic gender inequality in sports research.
Conclusion
There has been a slow and disparate response to disproportionately high rates of ACL injury in women’s football. We have no doubt that a health issue of similar magnitude affecting elite male footballers would have received a faster, more thorough, and better coordinated response. We agree with Karen Carney that the 40 Health barriers for girls and women in sport issue is indicative of systemic gender inequality in sports and exercise research, which is still overwhelmingly conducted by men, looking at issues affecting men.
Government Response Summary
The government accepts the conclusion, stating it intends to work with the sector on integrity challenges, has run a call for evidence on how issues are dealt with, and will set out the results and next steps 'in due course'.
Paragraph Reference:
76
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
The Government accepts this recommendation. Sport needs to be a welcoming, inclusive and fair environment that participants and their parents or guardians can have confidence in. We also want to ensure that we have the strongest possible systems for addressing sport integrity issues and that we remain at the forefront of global efforts around fairness and inclusion in sport. We intend to work alongside the sport and physical activity sector to identify the most pressing integrity challenges and potential improvements, including how processes around complaint handling and dispute resolution can be strengthened. In light of this, we ran a call for evidence over autumn 2023 to gather information and views on current experiences of how issues and concerns in sport across the UK are dealt with in the sector, and how these could be strengthened. Over 600 responses were received. We will set out the results of this exercise and an outline of our next steps in due course. Since its launch in May 2022, the number of individuals coming forward to use the Sport Integrity service has increased, and a high proportion of individuals are contacting the service directly rather than through referrals. This indicates that the service is increasingly viewed with confidence as a trusted space for investigating allegations of misconduct at the elite level of Olympic and Paralympic sport. UK Sport will continue to monitor the performance of the service to ensure it continues to provide access to effective, independent investigations. Pregnancy and maternity