New research has shown 59 per cent of Irish people have never attended a live women's sporting event. The report comes ahead of the start of the Lidl Ladies National Football League this weekend. Paula Cunningham is a former manager of the Monaghan senior ladies team. Speaking on today's Joe Finnegan Show, Paula believes that the stigma towards women's sport has improved over the years but sadly "not quick enough."
According to the former GAA manager, the only way to get rid of existing stigmas, is to get people attending and experiencing games in order to realise how good the sport and players are. She added that more flagship programmes and coverage is needed at a both a local and national level. Paula also believes that new initiatives and a drive to promote ladies GAA properly is crucial or else the sport will fall behind.
"The wheel just starts to move coming into the summer and towards the finals and semi-finals, but where are these people next weekend when the Lidl National League starts," explained Paula. "It comes down to the basics like fixtures and timings. Sometimes the games are fixed for ridiculous times, it's like they're just stuck in for the sake of it. The times have to be convenient for the supporters, it's important to pick a proper venue in each county and bring our ladies teams to the best venues in each county, instead of the back pitches which happens a lot of the time because pitches aren't available. We have to go back to the basics in order to get supporters out."
