‘Deliberate focus’ on ensuring Euro 2022 inspires more girls to play football

Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston insists there is a “deliberate and conscious focus” on driving up girls’ participation in football inside and outside of school.

Euro 2022 has captured the public imagination, with hosts England set to face Germany in Sunday’s final at Wembley.

BBC pundit Ian Wright spoke passionately earlier this week about the importance of seizing on this moment to ensure girls were given equal access to football in PE as boys.

One of the targets of the Football Association’s four-year ‘Inspiring Positive Change’ strategy is to ensure that every primary school-aged child should have the same access to the sport as boys at school and in clubs by 2024.

The FA has reported this year that only 63 per cent of schools offer girls’ football in PE lessons and that only 40 per cent of schools offer girls regular extracurricular football.

While at primary level 72 per cent of schools offer it, that drops to 44 per cent at secondary level.

Huddleston believes the FA’s strategy, and the success of Sarina Wiegman’s side, will inspire more girls and women to take up the sport.

“There has been a deliberate and conscious focus on the strategy of how we can inspire more girls and what the legacy will be of the women’s Euros,” he told the PA news agency.

“Money has been put into it to do precisely the things (Ian Wright talked about). There has been a focus and it will have an impact. I think making sure that young people in particular girls can get excited about a sport at school is really important.

“Certainly when I was at school, this has been one of the problems we’ve had over decades to be honest with sport in schools – girls playing netball and a couple of other things and boys playing cricket and football.

“When