In this episode we talk with Karen Dobres, Director of Lewes Football Club who are the only club in the world to assign equal playing budgets to their men’s and women’s football team.

Lewes Football Club’s Woman’s Team play in The Championship League (the second highest tier of Women’s Football) and their men’s team play in the 7^th tier.  In 2017 the decision to equalize player budgets was spearheaded by two of Lewes Football Club’s male directors and endorsed by the board and all community owners.  They all felt it was wrong for the teams to be allocated such disproportionate player budgets  particularly when the amount of training, effort and number of games which the teams play are the same.  This is when the Club started Equality FC . 

Lewes FC is 100% community-owned and is focused on creating positive social change for the people who own the club.  In the episode Karen talks about how the club became community owned.  Listeners can learn how they can become owners of the club. 

Karen also shares some of the initiatives which the Club adopted to increase football attendance at both the men’s and women’s games and highlights why it’s not crazy to pay the women the same as the men in football.

Karen talks about the  ‘The 50 Year Ban’  and how this impacted historically on woman’s football.