Mick Hartley

From the Mail on Sunday:

One of the biggest girls' football leagues in the country faces being shut down by the Football Association for refusing to allow a boy to play in its matches.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a row has broken out between the FA and officials running a female league in Yorkshire after parents complained their son had not been allowed to join.

It is understood the FA has threatened the West Riding Girls Football League with sanctions and a possible suspension if it does not agree to let boys on the pitch, a scenario officials have branded 'a massive threat to the girls' game'.

Last week an emergency meeting was held by organisers of the league – which has at least 6,000 under-18 girls playing across more than 300 teams – where managers voiced their concerns that allowing boys to play would 'open the floodgates'.

The FA's gender policy states that any under-16 teams must allow both boys and girls to play, despite admitting that 'physical strength, stamina or physique' can put one sex at the disadvantage of the other.

At the end of October last year the boy's parents asked the West Riding Girls League if their son could join due to him not wanting to play with other boys, and also because of his ability level….

An email from the league's secretary to its members last week said: 'This is a massive threat to the girls game and we should be mindful that this could be a long struggle should we fight this head on.

To all intents and purposes we would not just be fighting for the integrity of our girls' league but all girls' leagues in the country.'

Furious team coaches pointed out there were mixed sex leagues the boy could join.

One female club manager said: 'We've spoken to parents and the girls themselves, a number of them we've 'rescued' from mixed sex leagues where they have been excluded from having the ball passed to them, where they have been tackled and had bones broken.

'I have also been informed by parents that they would be looking to take their daughters out of the league and the girls themselves saying they would just give it up if boys joined.'

A male coach said when he asked the girls on his team for their opinion on allowing boys to join they all said 'they wouldn't be happy and then four said they would give up playing football'.

He's not even claiming to be trans, this lad. He just wants to play with the girls because….well, because he's not very good, and thinks he'll do better with the girls. Nice for him, not so nice for the girls. It's sort of taking away the trans fig-leaf to make the power-play even clearer: women in sport don't really matter.

Why bother even having a female league, if boys/men can just join in when they feel like it?