An alarming number of women in Germany are quitting football at a young age, according to Silke Sinning, the new vice-president of the country’s governing body DFB.
Sinning warned that this could have a big impact on the top level as well.
“We can’t play games, we can’t support the top if fewer and fewer women play football,” she said on Tuesday.
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Sinning said the biggest decline comes when girls reach puberty and have other interests beyond football.
She said she has been told by teenagers that matches on a Sunday morning are not compatible with going out with friends the previous night.
“We have to listen much more closely to the grassroots on these issues,” Sinning who used to play football in her younger years said.
But Sinning, a professor of sports education and sports didactics, said that it has become easier overall for women to get into male dominated sports like boxing and football.
She also said that kindergartens and schools could help girls from families who have come to Germany from male dominated societies.
“Because if girls enjoy football here then they can also convince their fathers that they want to play football in a club.”(dpa/NAN)
