Covid 19 coronavirus: World Rugby, Fifa and International Cricket Council hold joint crisis talks amid fears of fall in global female participation in sport

White Ferns captain Sophie Devine speaks to the media during the ICC Women's World Cup Launch at the Basin Reserve in Wellington last month. Photo / Photosport

By Kate Rowan for The Telegraph

Leading representatives across World Rugby, Fifa and the International Cricket Council have come together to hold regular crisis meetings to share ideas amid fears of a global slump in female participation in sport after the coronavirus pandemic.

Scheduling of major events and the support of member unions and federations during the global shutdown of sport have also been areas of concern for those charged with running women's rugby, football and cricket around the world.

Katie Sadleir, World Rugby's general manager for women's rugby, Sarai Bareman, Fifa's chief women's football officer and Holly Calvin, the ICC chief women's cricket officer, have been in continual contact since COVID-19 has closed down sport.

"We are sharing ideas and supporting each other," Sadleir told the Telegraph. "We have spent quite a bit of time talking about the implications for women's sport and what they are currently doing. No one six months ago, thought we would be in this situation and now is a time for leaders in women's sport to step up."

Sadleir, who took up her role at World Rugby three years ago, has always worked with her football and cricket counterparts but there has now been increased communication. While she spoke in positive terms of the co-operation with other sports, she also raised fears that participation numbers in rugby will take a hit due to largely amateur nature of the sport.

"Things will be different. The reality is that people are going to have different priorities in terms of how they spend their discretionary time for a period of time after this.

"That is what I think is going to be different. We won't be able to say we have 2.7 million women participating in rugby; it just won't be the same post [the coronavirus crisis].

"Hopefully what we do over this time is to work together on some solutions to make sure that different is good as opposed to a disaster but we will just have to work through that with the people we invested in.

"We are also sharing a lot more resources. I had a look at something Fifa had sent through in terms of what they are rolling out in new support programmes for federations and unions that is going to happen regardless of this situation. I sent out some of the work we did on coaching, we started talking about those two programmes."

Fifa's Chief Women's Football Officer Sarai Bareman. Photo / Photosport

The three global governing bodies have also been speaking regularly about the scheduling of major tournaments. New Zealand is due to stage World Cups in both cricket and rugby next year. There had been some concerns regarding the overlap between the men's and women's European Championships in football. The men's Euros have been postponed from this year until next summer, while discussions are still ongoing whether the women's Euros, which will be staged in England, will be moved back to 2022.

Sadleir revealed that the Rugby World Cup - as the women's tournament is known as it uses gender neutral branding - is still due to go ahead in New Zealand from Sept 18 to Oct 16 2021 despite the Tokyo Olympics being rescheduled to run from July 23 to August 8.

This had led to fears that there would be issues caused for players who represent their nation is both Sevens and XVs, as well as diminished profile for the tournament.

Sadleir, however, believes 2021 could be a "golden year for women's rugby" but that World Rugby is working closely with unions to "talk to them about some of the implications of having the two competitions close together. At this stage there has definitely been no discussion about changing the dates of the World Cup."

Sadleir also expressed how 2021 could be used as a model for separating out Sevens and XVs programmes. Currently, England is the only leading nation with no cross over between sevens and XVs players.

NeedToKnow3

Defending World Cup champions New Zealand had been attempting to divide out their programmes but it is now reported that as many as eight players had been hoping to feature in both the Olympic and World Cup squads. Players may have to have to choose between the two formats due to only 40 days of turnaround between events. The other top nation France, who looks set to qualify for the Olympics, still has senior players committed to both formats.

Black Ferns halfback Kendra Cocksedge. Photo / Photosport

"Ultimately our aim is to grow the game and over time less and less overlap between players who choose to be in sevens and players who choose to be in XVs," said Sadleir.

"There is some overlap now, but it is not a total overlap – there are [distinct] Sevens and XVs players. Unions will need to take that into consideration in terms of their campaign plans going forward. Long term the aim is to have enough depth in both of those formats, so that isn't a necessity and that feeds into some of the work we are doing in terms of growing the game."

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website