by Kadeem Simmonds

Scotland goalkeeper Gemma Fay said yesterday that Scottish football needs to change and that women can be the difference.

Fay spoke out against the lack of women at board level across the Scottish leagues.

“When we talk about Scottish football we need to remember that we’re talking about business,” Fay said.

“Football is business. That means that what you do has to be representative of the members of your organisation and the people who are out there.”

Fay’s comments come after Hearts owner Ann Budge and Hibernian chief executive Leeann Dempster spoke out last week about how the Scottish Professional Football League was being run, in regards to Rangers’ last game being moved for television coverage.

“What both Ann Budge and Leeann Dempster said was impressive in that they challenged the processes — it wasn’t a personal attack, it wasn’t targeted at any individual,” added Fay.

“They’re both very successful businesswomen, they’ve come into the game with a great skill set. They’ve used that skill set to say: ‘Hold on a minute, we have processes and procedures in place for a reason — it’s there so that the game runs well and that we keep our integrity.’

“That’s been challenged so as an owner and a chief executive they stand up and say: ‘Hold on a second, that’s not right for us and it is not right for our game’.”

Fay, who has been capped 160 times by Scotland, wants to see a change in Scotland and not just in football but across sport in general.

“We need to start looking at football in a different way if we’re going to see change and progress.

“If you look across the UK we have 20 per cent women versus 80 per cent men in terms of representation across sporting boards at director level. That’s something that within Scotland we’re trying to address through the Equality Standard for Sport.

“We want women to be on these boards because they have the right skill set. There’s evidence there to say that if you have a diverse board you get better performance.

“If you look at what these two women are doing in Scottish sport, 20 years ago this would be unheard of. When we talk about women in sport it is not just about the actual taking part and playing of sport — there are so many roles across sport: journalism, administration, marketing.

“These are fantastic women with fantastic business minds and that can only be good for Scottish football and Scottish sport in general.”