When you think of sport, the stereotype is a professional male football game. Unfortunately, this is far from the current events in sport. My dear readers, are you ready to learn about the secrets of the sporting world? Then read on...

To begin with, let's cover 52% of the population at once. Women have a hard time in sport. A few generations ago, women were banned from playing any form of sport professionally and, while the guidelines have relaxed a lot, it still isn't as good as it could be. A Cambridge University study found that 83% of women who do sport for a living have been sexually harassed, and 54% said that nothing was done when they challenged the harassment. These women are role models for young girls who want to get into the sporting world, but if the role models are being harassed and nothing is done about it, then something has to change. Would you want your daughter growing up in a world of sexual and verbal abuse? Something must change. It doesn't help that female athletes receive less pay than male athletes of the same skill level, and that women's sport is much less advertised than men's sport. The BBC looked at all of their sporting broadcasts over the last 10 years, and 82% of televised sport was of male players!. Everyone is trying to get young girls interested in sport, but they aren't being provided with enough strong female sport role models to maintain an interest.

It isn't any easier for the LGBTQ+ community either. Oxford University ran a study of 1000 people who watch sports on a daily basis and found that 8% of watchers would stop watching if their team had a gay player. Gay players also receive so much abuse because of their sexuality that one gay footballer ended his life! Just think about that; a guy who had trained all his life to play for his team, only to end it due to abuse over preferring guys to girls. Shockingly, this abuse isn't stopping! The World Cup was held in Russia in 2018, which is a very anti-gay country. For example, two men did a study where they walked around Moscow holding hands and received both verbal and physical abuse for it. Any gay players would receive shedloads of abuse in Russia. Even worse, the one after Russia is in Qatar, which is one of the few countries that still has the death penalty for homosexuality. It's no wonder that players that have made their homosexuality public had such a hard time revealing it, and an even worse one after the reveal. The sporting world needs to be more open to the gay community. In the words of Nike, 'Just do it'.

To conclude, I'd like to make a statement to the sporting world. It shouldn't matter if a player likes guys or girls. Sport isn't affected by it in any way other than positive, as it would provide role models for young people who have already walked the path they are about to travel on and could do with someone to look up to. Young girls getting into sport need these as well, and none of the sexual harassment that goes with it.