Research led by Professor Geoff Walters shows significant gender imbalances in board composition across English professional football clubs and provides practical recommendations for the Independent Football Regulator (IFR) to consider in the design of the new football governance code.
Developed in collaboration with sports business specialists at the Universities of Northumbria, London and Portsmouth1, the study benchmarks board composition of 116 clubs in the top five tiers of English football against best practice from publicly traded companies and the wider non-profit sports sector.
A deep dive into board characteristics at these clubs confirms disproportionate male dominance in directorship roles, with only 49 out of 576 board members being women.
The research confirms gender diversity on football boards is lagging far behind best practice examples from FTSE 350 companies and National Governing Bodies (NGBs) in publicly funded sports.
It also provides a series of policy recommendations to address gender gaps in the new code of practice for professional football, as well as further suggestions on board size, aggregate skills and term limits for directors.
A new era in football governance
The end of 2025 marked a turning point for football governance in England.
The introduction of the IFR, means for first time in history an independent body has a formal role in overseeing the financial regulation of professional clubs.
Previously, the sector relied on a laissez-faire approach which resulted in a self-regulatory environment that failed to control clubs from financial gambling.
The IFR’s mandate is clear and ambitious: to protect the financial soundness of clubs, strengthen the resilience of the wider football system and safeguard the game’s heritage for future generations.
The Football Governance Act 2025 establishes that clubs from the National League upwards must apply for a license from the IFR to compete in their respective leagues.
To obtain a full license, they need to meet a series of standards on the skills, knowledge and leadership required to work at the highest levels of the industry.
The IFR has been tasked to define these benchmarks in a new football governance code which applies to the 20 teams in the English Premier League; all 72 clubs across the three divisions of the English Football League; and the 24 clubs in the top division of the National League.
Board gender balance in professional football
Gender diversity on boards has been a key area of research and policy focus over the past 15 years in the UK corporate sector, and it’s expected to be a fundamental aspect for the IFR to address.
In addition to changing societal expectations around diversity and inclusion, growing evidence supports the idea that diverse boards improve organisational governance and, in turn, business performance.
An increase in voluntary targets for women on corporate boards2, has preceded a significant move towards gender balance among FTSE 350 organisations, going from 9.5% in 2011 to 43% in 20253.
In 2016, the UK Code of Sports Governance introduced a requirement for organisations funded by UK Sport or Sport England to have a gender balance of 30% on boards.
Although this requirement was dropped in 2021, gender balance has become firmly embedded in the sector, with women now representing around 40% of board members across NGBs4.
While publicly funded sports are moving the needle in the right direction, codes of practice in professional football are virtually non-existent with no explicit requirements for clubs to consider in the composition of their boards5.
The first step to understand how the IFR should address issues connected to board structure is to find out how clubs compare to wider standards of organisational governance.
To shed light on this, Geoff and his colleagues analysed the board characteristics of all 116 clubs competing in the top five divisions of English football in the 2024/25 season.
The data was collected from Companies House in May 2025, offering a snapshot of board size; occupation, gender and age of board members; and how long they’ve been part of the board, at that point in time.
English football clubs fail the gender diversity test
The analysis indicates striking gender imbalance on corporate boards of professional football clubs, with 8.5% female board members across the sector at the time the data was collected.
This is nearly 35% less than in the FTSE 350 and over 30% less compared to NGBs.
A closer look into each league shows that with 16 women serving as directors, League Two had the highest percentage of female representation (14.8%), followed by League One with 14 females sitting on corporate boards (10.8%).
In mid-table was the Premier League, with 10 female board members (8.1%), just above the National League with seven female directors (6.7%).
And at the bottom of the table was the Championship with only two of 108 directors being women (1.8%).
But the picture for female representation in professional football becomes even gloomier when looking at leadership roles.
Out of 116 clubs, only Bolton Wanderers and Port Vale had a woman in the role of chair, and West Ham United and York City had a female co-chair.
This limited gender diversity is far behind what we see in the FTSE 350, where 17% of boards are chaired by a woman.
In contrast, while there are no all-male boards in the FTSE 350, 82 out of the 116 football boards were exclusively made up by men (71%)6, which further underlines the need to address widespread dominance of male directors in English football.
Addressing male bias on professional football boards
Geoff’s study makes four key policy recommendations to address existing gender diversity imbalances identified in the analysis.
The data indicates boards of football clubs are generally too small. With an average of five directors and only 9% having nine or more members, this is far from what’s seen as best practice, ie between 5-12 people.
The authors recommend that, in addition to providing guidance on board size, the IFR should set a voluntary target of 30% or at least two female board members (whichever is larger) to be implemented over three years.
This is in line with the 30% requirement for gender balance in the Sports Governance Code 2016 and gives clubs three years to think about board recruitment strategies to enhance female inclusion.
Once achieved, this voluntary target can be stretched to further improve women’s representation, as seen in the corporate sector.
To guarantee transparency, accountability and trackability, the authors propose clubs should be required to indicate the number of female board members in annual reports, alongside other diversity and equality criteria.
They also suggest this practice should extend to those in senior management positions and committee members.
In addition, the new code should require football clubs to have a board diversity policy – Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Action Plan – that addresses gender diversity, alongside other EDI criteria.
The EDI Action Plans should include a summary of key policies, procedures and processes football clubs have put in place to improve diversity at board and senior management level.
Finally, Geoff and his colleagues stress the IFR should provide additional support and guidance to help clubs implement a board recruitment process targeted at women.
This could include advice on putting in place open and transparent recruitment processes, which focus on the skills needed by a football club board, and set out clear terms of reference and tenure limits for board members.
The IFR could liaise with organisations such as Women in Football to deliver dedicated training and workshops, whether online or in-person.
Board renewal and refreshment: skills, age and tenure limits
In addition to these recommendations, the authors also drew on the study findings to propose additional suggestions for the new code of practice.
As well as stressing the need to clarify whether directors are independent or not, they suggest the new code should require clubs to conduct an evaluation of the skills and experience of their current board members (a skills matrix).
The goal is to identify expertise gaps and broaden the skills base beyond management and finance, into other areas – eg digital, social media, football practice – that can strengthen the composition of the board.
A similar recommendation is to assess whether there’s scope to bring in younger board members, who offer fresh perspectives and a different type of diversity, not considered in codes of governance.
The findings also indicate 25% of directors have been on the board for 10 years or longer, so the final suggestion for the new code is to consider term limits to directorships to facilitate board renewal across gender, age and skills.
1 For this study, Professor Geoff Walters has collaborated with: Dr Mark Middling, Assistant Professor (Newcastle Business School, University of Northumbria); Dr Richard Evans, Honorary Research Fellow and member of the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre (University of London); Dr Christina Philippou, Associate Professor in Accounting and Sport Finance (University of Portsmouth); and Sean Hamil, Senior Lecturer and Birkbeck Sport Business Centre Director (University of London).
2 For example, the Financial Conduct Authority requires listed companies to provide details in their annual report as to whether they have a minimum of 40% women on the board and that a woman holds at least one of the senior board positions (Chair, CEO, Senior Independent Director or CFO).
3 Source: FTSE Women Leaders Review, 2025.
4 Source: Sport England and UK Sport, 2024.
5 Currently, there’s little regulatory oversight of board governance except for owners and directors’ tests administered by various football authorities.
6 Number of clubs with all-male boards per league: 12 in the Premier League, 22 in the Championship, 15 in League One, 15 in League Two and 18 in the National League.