Abstract
Football (soccer), the world’s most popular sport, carries a legacy of gender exclusion. Women were banned from playing in many jurisdictions and remain largely absent from its leadership. Implicit and/or conscious biases perpetuate the under-development and under-resourcing of the women’s game, and the under-representation of women in decision-making roles, ‘the long-standing lack of women in positions of responsibility in the football community means there have been limited voices to advocate for change’ (FIFA, 2018, p. 4). In parallel, allegations of corruption have accompanied football, its officials, and its governing bodies (including the international federation, FIFA) for many years, with limited progress or accountability. In May 2015, the raids and arrest of senior FIFA officials triggered a corruption crisis, which provided the impetus for structural change. In the ensuing chaos, FIFA faced an overwhelming imperative for reform. At FIFA’s Congress in February 2016, a number of Statute amendments were approved, reflecting a growing acknowledgement and commitment to women in football.
This chapter provides an insider’s view through Moya Dodd, one of the first women on FIFA's Executive Committee. During the corruption crisis of 2015, she submitted reform proposals and gave voice to the broader community of support for gender reforms in FIFA. We show the power of including lived experience through autoethnographic and reflective writing practice in formal evaluations of policy change for women in sport. Additionally, we encourage more practitioners to include creative writing practice to give voice to those driving change and highlight the process by which progress towards gender equality was, and can be, achieved.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Moya Dodd for her invaluable insights and contribution to this chapter. The authors also acknowledge the use of the autoethnographic material previously published in: Dodd, M., & Ordway, C. (2020). FIFA Governance: How Crisis Opened the Door for Gender Equality Reforms, Jean Monnet Working Paper Series 14/20, New York University School of Law, https://jeanmonnetprogram.org/paper/fifa-governance-how-crisis-opened-the-door-for-gender-equality-reforms/
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Ordway, C., Symons, K. (2023). It Doesn't Happen by Magic: Creatively Exploring the Process of Changemaking in Sport Through Moya Dodd and FIFA. In: McGowan, L., Symons, K. (eds) Intersections of Sport and Society in Creative Writing. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5585-5_12
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