Judy Murray calls for more female coaches in sport
By Charlotte Bates
Last Updated: 07/10/16 8:33am
Judy Murray believes having more female coaches across all levels of sport is vital to significantly increasing participation among women.
The 57-year-old, who resigned as captain of Great Britain's Fed Cup team in March after five years in charge, insists there is a shortage of women in key positions within the sports industry.
"One of the things is to have more female coaches and more female PE teachers because women much better understand how girls tick," Murray, who has helped guide the career of her son Andy, told Sky Sports News HQ. "I think that's an important thing.
"The world is a different place nowadays and sport is competing with so many other things for girls' attention that we need to make our sport as attractive as possible.
"Above everything else girls are not as physical, not as competitive as boys anyway, girls like being with their friends, so it's very important for us to make sure we have a lot of all girl activity.
"All girl PE is much easier for girls to thrive in than it is if they are actually vying for attention or competing in any way with boys."
Murray was speaking at a Miss-Hit workshop, a tennis initiative she launched two years ago aimed at training teachers and A-level students how to deliver starter tennis to girls aged five to eight.
Tennis is one of the few sports where men and women are paid equally and Murray believes more investment in women's sport is needed if others are to follow suit.
"Every sport has its own challenges," added Murray. "It would be nice to think that [equal pay in sport] could happen.
"But again I think investment has to start into helping women to become as good as they possibly can be in their sport.
"There more champions and the more personalities we can produce then the more attractive female sport is and the more fans go along to watch it.
"Men's and women's tennis attracts a larger female audience then a male audience so you have respond to marketing forces and tennis is in a fortunate place."
