An England Deaf Women’s footballer has called for greater inclusivity and recognition for deaf athletes from the Football Association (FA) and the government. This is after the team had to rely on crowdfunding to compete at the World Cup.
Claire Stancliffe, 34, hopes the contest in Malaysia in September will help boost this mission after a GoFundMe helped raise £50,000 to send them to the tournament.
“With the Deaflympics 2025 coming up, it was so important to continue deaf women’s football in order to create a pathway.
“There are deaf children out there that don’t have a visible role model. We need to be making them aware of what’s possible.”
The need for a fundraiser came after the FA switched the team’s focus to the indoor five-a-side futsal format in April.
Stancliffe disagreed with the decision to ‘cut’ the 11-a-side team.
She said: “Whilst I respect [the decision], I don’t agree with it. The public has shown they fully support us and believe we have the right to represent our country.”
Stancliffe stressed the importance of recognition and increased funding to help young deaf people engage in sports.
Blogger Simon Harris set up the fundraiser for the team and started his social media campaign on 9 May.
Harris has 250,000 followers on Facebook and 100,000 followers on Twitter. The team reached its £50,000 target within two weeks of Harris’ first tweet.
Like Stancliffe, he called on the FA to do more to support inclusivity in football.
“Hopefully the increased exposure will get more people to try out for the team, and I would hope that the FA could end up ‘sabre rattling’ to get the richest clubs to do more financially for all forms of inclusion in the game,” he said.
(Image provided by Claire Stancliffe)
England Deaf Women’s team hopes to raise a total of £100,000. The first £50,000 covered travel and hotel costs for the players and staff.
Another £50,000 would cover equipment and training camps for the tournament.
Is it true the FA are funding the men’s deaf team.. ? If so why not our Women.. ?
Unfortunately, this is the case. The FA cut the funding of the women’s 11-a-side team in favour of team focusing solely on playing futsal, an indoor 5-a-side format of the game. The England men’s deaf team remain an 11-a-side outfit and receive funding from the FA; shocking.