Call for more female soccer players on birthday cards

Efforts to promote the women’s game are being undermined by a lack of birthday cards for female footballers, a group of MPs has claimed.

They are urging manufacturers and retailers to sell more cards celebrating female football players in a bid to inspire young women to take up the game.

Liberal Democrat MP Helen Maguire tabled a motion in the House of Commons to raise her concerns and call for action.

She told the BBC that the industry was “not keeping up with the times” and should do more to promote gender equality in sport.

A greetings card maker said that due to consumer demand, more cards featuring female soccer stars will soon appear in stores.

Maguire said he decided to table the Early Day motion in the Commons after trying to buy a birthday card for his office manager “who is a big fan of football”.

“I looked at the girls’ section and there was no one sporty. The only sports people I could find were the men’s sections,” she told BBC News.

The MP for Epsom and Ewell said she “finally bought a card with a male footballer on it”.

His EDM has been signed by 12 other MPs, including fellow Lib Dems, two Green Party MPs and the DUP’s Jim Shannon.

Asked whether the proposal was a good use of taxpayers’ money, especially when it is easy to buy cards featuring female footballers online, she said MPs needed to promote the women’s game.

“Hopefully this will help teen girls recognize that sports is a good thing,” she said.

Daniel Prince, managing director of Danilo Promotions, which produces officially licensed greeting cards and calendars for football clubs, said they were keen to promote the women’s game.

“The growth in women’s football has clearly created consumer demand, and based on the success of our women’s football calendar we are further developing our card range.

“More cards featuring female football stars will appear in a major high street retailer later this year.”

Maguire’s EDM says the “underrepresentation of female athletes” in greeting cards and other products “undermines efforts to promote gender equality in sports” and urges companies to “inspire the next generation of female athletes.” Does.

EDMs are used by MPs to draw attention to issues, and are never debated and rarely result in new laws.

MPs produce thousands of EDMs each year on a variety of topics, although some The cost of printing and processing is argued They cannot be justified.