THE DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY WOMEN IN PURSUING A MANAGERIAL CAREER IN SPORTS

Abstract

With considerable efforts, women have made remarkable progress and have become increasingly present in the sporting phenomenon, both as athletes and in various management positions. However, compared to men, they are still under-represented in the management positions of sports organizations, especially at senior management levels. According to the European Institute for Gender Equality (European Commission, 2014), the percentage of women in management positions in leading sports organizations was very low in 2014 (an average of 10%); also, out of 52 European sports federations, 20 had no women on their federal boards and only two had women as presidents. In 2017, out of the 74 national sports federations in our country, only 7 had female presidents. We should also not forget that there are still situations where women are paid less than men for work of equal value (according to the same European Institute for Gender Equality, women would earn 2 euros per hour less than men, on average). Given these data, we wanted to identify the difficulties encountered by women in managerial careers. For our study, we conducted a series of interviews with women managers in sport organizations from our country. The interviews had pre-determined questions and were focused on issues such as: gender discrimination, differences in remuneration between women and men, barriers and obstacles to promoting at work, difficulties and limitations encountered by women in pursuing their managerial careers