86 per cent of British sportswomen earn less than average working salary

An overwhelming majority of British sportswomen earn less than the UK's average working salary, and more than one in five are concerned they might have to give up their sport due to the impact of coronavirus, a worrying study by the BBC has found.

The BBC Elite Women's Sport Survey 2020, which had responses from 537 full-time athletes in 35 sports, revealed that 86 per cent of them earned less than £30,000 a year from their sport and over a third did not earn a single penny. Nearly half of respondents also said they did not believe their governing body supported them equally compared to male colleagues.

Moire than 80 per cent of sportswomen also said they had concerns about the impact the pandemic would have on women's sports. While men's football, cricket and other sports returned to the fold as the country made slow moves out of lockdown, women's team sport took a four-month hiatus, with women's cricket returning first for a one-off fixture late last month.

The most stark contrast has been seen in domestic football's response to the crisis, with the top two women's football tiers abandoned due to coronavirus, while every necessary action was taken to ensure the lucrative men's Premier League and Championship completed their seasons behind closed doors.

As a result of their sport stalling during lockdown, over a fifth of the sportswomen polled by the BBC are worried they may have to stop participating altogether due to coronavirus.

These revelations came alongside figures that showed widespread social media abuse suffered by sportswomen, with 30 per cent of those surveyed reporting that they had been trolled online - more than double the last time the research was carried out in 2015. One in five sportswomen also said they had experienced or witnessed racism in their sport, and one respondent said she received comments on Twitter about her ethnicity, saying she is "not really British".

On the topic of pregnancy and sport, 36 per cent said they do not feel supported by their club or governing body to have a baby and continue to compete, while four per cent said they had an abortion because they felt a baby would impact their sporting career.

"We have seen a lot of positive momentum in women's sport over the last five years, but this is a stark reminder that there is still so much more to be done," Tammy Parlour, chief executive of the Women's Sport Trust, told BBC Sport. "It's crucial to see these results as symptoms of the wider system, understand what is creating this environment, and address the underlying causes."