New Efforts Needed to Increase Number of Women Sport Leaders

IOC member Nawal El Moutawakel called on the IOC and other sports organizations to increase female leadership. (ATR)A panel of experts says much more needs to be done to include women in leadership positions of international sports organizations.

The comments came Monday at a forum in Brussels organized by the French think tank Sport et Citoyenneté. The forum, with about 50 participants, was held at the European Parliament. “Women and Sport: What is at Stake for Europe?” was the theme.

Nawal El Moutawakel, IOC Executive Board member, Olympian and minister of youth and sport for Morocco, called on the IOC and other sports organizations to increase the numbers of female leaders.

Speaking in a video message, El Moutawakel said the IOC must increase its female membership, which stands at 16 out of 107 members or about 15 percent. The IOC’s own commission on Women and Sport at one time had set 20 percent as a goal to reach. El Moutawakel suggests that quotas may be needed to increase that number.

Pal Schmitt, IOC member in Hungary, who did speak in person at the Brussels forum, admitted that while gender equity has reached the teams competing at the Olympic Games, it hasn't for the IOC.

Women make up only 15 percent of the IOC's membership. (Getty Images)“It's up now to the national federations and organizations to push up women for leader position in the world of sport,” said Schmitt, who imprecisely stated in his talk that women make up 25 percent of the IOC.

Speaking of the male domination of sports leadership, Schmitt notes that in Africa and Asia, “because they are men, they are voting for men."

“No candidate is coming, that is the problem. So we have to do a kind of positive discrimination, in favor of women against the men candidates,” says Schmitt.

Emine Bozkurt, member of the European Parliament from Netherlands, says she isn’t sure quotas are the answer. She told the panel, “I think girls at an earlier age should be encouraged to take some responsibilities in sports associations because women can play a very important role.”

She cited swimming great Erica Terpstra, now president of the Netherlands NOC, as an example of a role model for women sports leaders.

Athina Kyriakidou of Greece, the chair of the European Women and Sport Network, blasted the imbalance between men and women in sports leadership as a “lack of democracy."

“We have to encourage women to participate in sport, to participate in key positions, in decision-making positions, to participate in all level of sport. IOC member Pal Schmitt acknowledges that many male sports leaders only vote for men which is a factor in the current IOC membership. (ATR)

“That is very difficult, because all the posts are taken by men; the majority is taken by men. They vote for each other, they have the power."

Kyriakidou says she believes sport will benefit from greater participation by women in sports leadership.

“We speak about violence in sport, violence in schools, violence in everywhere. If more women participate in key positions, I assure you, it will be less violence, because women, we are mothers, we gave birth, and the youth of our children, we could see all this from a different aspect of view.”

Written by

Ed Hula

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