A great year – but unfinished business remains

Rachel Williams Policy and Public Affairs Manager, Women in Sport

2025 was an amazing year for women’s sport – so much so that it’s hard to choose where to start picking the highlights. The Lionesses and the Red Roses would top of most of the lists for England. Other home nations might pick Wales qualifying for their first ever international football competition. Sonay Kartal’s breakthrough at Wimbledon and Eilish McColgan’s debut performance at London Marathon should be up there too.

And that’s just in the UK. What about Canada’s amazing run at the Women’s Rugby World Cup? Pauline Ferrand Prevot becoming the first Frenchwoman to win the Tour de France Femmes? India winning an historic home Cricket World Cup?

It’s always tempting to look at lists like this and conclude that women’s sport is somehow ‘fixed’. That this elite success inevitably filters down and inspires the next generation. I wish it was that simple, but it’s not. It never has been.

The latest edition of Women in Sport’s Dream Deficit shows this, starkly. This research, now in its sixth edition, tracks the rates at which girls dream of reaching the top in sport. Girls’ dream rates have been steadily rising since we began the survey but this year they have fallen significantly.

Part of the explanation for this is the flipside of the coin of elite success that any honest review of women’s sport in 2025 must confront.

The Lionesses won a second consecutive Euros, but their Black players faced horrific racist abuse. The Red Roses won a home World Cup, in front of a sell-out crowd at Twickenham, but the misogynistic scrutiny of players’ bodies throughout the tournament was depressingly inevitable.

Emma Raducanu was physically stalked whilst playing at the Dubai Tennis Championships.

It’s important that we don’t let the bad overshadow the good. But we must recognise that the bad exists.

It’s important that we don’t let the bad overshadow the good. But we must recognise that the bad exists

Of course, sport is not just elite sport, and what happens in our schools, clubs and communities is just as important for women’s sport.

We saw the beginning of some major positive change in this area in 2025, with the Government committing to an overhaul of PE and school sport that has the potential to be a game-changer for girls. With a new curriculum and delivery model coming in 2026, we have a generational opportunity to make sport work for girls at a life stage where our relationship with sport is so often set – for good or ill.

New investment in grassroots facilities is also good news, especially as much of it explicitly targets women and girls. This sort of targeted approach is something Women in Sport has long campaigned for. How this is consistent with the concerning plans to remove Sport England’s voice in the planning system, putting playing fields and pitches at risk, remains to be seen.

As we begin 2026 there is so much to be optimistic about – and look forward to for women’s sport. But we shouldn’t pretend there aren’t still hurdles to face. Let’s make 2026 the year we step up together, as a sport community and accelerate progress – because the time for action is now.