Imagine sitting in the stands as a section of fans chants directly at you to “get your t**s out for the lads”.
It shouldn’t happen, but at Kick It Out, we still hear these stories far too often.
In the past few months alone, there have been several incidents of mass chanting at grounds in men’s football, which are sexist and misogynistic.
This includes chants targeting the partners of male players, mainly degrading their appearance, and taunts calling them “s***s”, “b****es”. We’ve even heard chants making light of alleged sexual violence cases, belittling victims and making light of the situation.
As a football fan myself, I’ve been going to games for over 25 years. Fans chanting club songs and heckling opposition players and even referees, has always been the norm and pushed the limits.
However, when chanting becomes discriminatory or abusive and makes people feel targeted or unwelcome, it shows how far we still must go in improving football’s culture.
To try and tackle this, Kick It Out conducted research with 1,500 women fans last season and found that over half had experienced sexism and misogyny on matchdays.
Women shared stories of receiving lewd requests, being subjected to sexually aggressive language, and even facing physical threats.
It’s clear I’m far from alone in witnessing or experiencing this behaviour.
The women we spoke to also told us about the profound impact this abuse can have on their relationship with the game, and perhaps more concerningly, that almost one in four women don’t feel safe at football matches. Underrepresented groups such as black, Asian, mixed heritage, disabled or LGBTQ+ women feel even less safe. That has to change.
This isn’t just about fans either. Women working in football have also faced relentless misogyny for years. In 2015, Chelsea medic Eva Carneiro, and assistant referee Helen Byrne, suffered chants and taunts during several fixtures.
Fast forward a decade and we are still getting reports of female physios and referees being abused, just for doing their job.
It doesn’t appear some fans know that targeting women simply because of their gender is wrong. Quite often people will say “it’s just banter”, “why are you being so sensitive?” – we’ve seen that narrative play out regularly on social media when people have been challenged.
While we’ve welcomed stronger bans and punishments for discriminatory abuse in stadiums in recent years, responses to sexism still seem to lag far behind. In my opinion, the lack of a strong enough deterrent means many people feel there won’t be any real repercussions and will just carry on regardless.
Misogyny isn’t classified as a hate crime, and gender-related hate crimes in football haven’t historically been recorded by the Home Office.
But action can be taken against sexist chants, and we are pushing for greater understanding within law enforcement and clubs around sexism and misogyny to ensure this behaviour isn’t left unchecked, whether through bans, fines or education.
Where do we go from here?
Firstly, at Kick It Out, we have engaged every major football governing body on the topic of sexism and misogyny in the past 18 months, to reinforce the point that this issue needs addressing and must be taken seriously. Our aim is to ensure that women are heard, and the issue is brought further into the light.
We want to see clubs take a stronger stance when dealing with sexist and misogynistic chants in their stadiums, such as enforcing a no-tolerance policy and communicating that with their fans.
We know that bans, arrests and strong statements from clubs have been highly effective at challenging tragedy and homophobic chanting.
In 2023, Gillingham banned two fans for misogynistic chanting and referred the offenders to our fan education programme. At Birmingham City last season, two fans were arrested for misogynistic chanting. So action can happen, but clubs need to be proactive and work with police to achieve better outcomes.
Without action from clubs there remains a lack of trust from women that sexist abuse will be taken seriously. Our research showed 85 per cent of women who had experienced or witnessed sexism in a football setting didn’t report it because they didn’t think it would make a difference, or they would be listened to.
That’s why when women report this behaviour, it’s vital we all work together to see better outcomes.
We want to build confidence in the reporting process which is why we have developed a new reporting relationship with Her Game Too to better support women in the game. We’ve also produced education packs for clubs on how to tackle sexism and misogyny.
Women fans benefit clubs. They buy tickets. They buy merchandise. They increase a club’s following and revenue. So in return, they should feel welcome at the club they support. That’s the least we should be asking in 2025 but we are far from there yet.
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