Gender equality in sport: joint EU – Council of Europe project highlights progress and disparities
A new report from the joint project "All In Plus: Promoting greater gender equality in sport" provides a comprehensive analysis of gender equality across European sport organisations.
The analytical report is based on data collected in 21 jurisdictions. It analyses the state of gender equality in
- leadership
- coaching
- officiating
- participation from grass-roots to elite level
- preventing gender-based violence
- media / communication
- gender equality policies and programmes in sport
Key findings
The findings were presented at the closing event of the project on 13 February 2025 in Luxembourg.
Leadership
Women remain significantly underrepresented in decision-making roles.
Only 12% of sports federations have a female President, and 29% have a female Vice-President or Board members.
While 59% of sports organisations have taken action to increase women’s representation, disparities remain stark.
Coaching
Women make up only 23% of registered coaches, with significant variations among countries.
While Malta (40%), Switzerland (39%) and Sweden (34%) have relatively higher shares of female coaches, some jurisdictions have sports federations that employ no female coaches at all.
Only half of sports organisations have taken action to recruit more women into coaching roles.
Officiating
Women account for just 32% of sports officials, with numbers particularly low in Austria (8%).
Only 47% of sports organisations have put in place measures to increase female representation in officiating.
Participation
Women and girls represent only 31% of all sports federation members. Participation rates drop significantly from youth to adulthood.
Finland stands out as a leader in gender-balanced participation with 50%, while in many other jurisdictions women’s engagement in sport remains limited.
Preventing gender-based violence (GBV)
The percentage of sports organisations having written policies has increased from 25% in 2019 to 39% in the latest data collection in 2023.
However, only 33% allocate funds for GBV prevention, and only 37% have victim support mechanisms in place.
Media representation
Only 35% of sports organisations have taken steps to promote gender-balanced representation in the media, with Austria (65%) and Spain (59%) leading in this area.
However, fewer than 30% of organisations have media guidelines for gender-sensitive representation.
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