A football-mad little girl was shunned from her first coaching session in the capital after players started chanting “boys are best” during a drill.
Mum Dr Meryl Kenny, 39, told how her four-year-old daughter was the only girl at the football class for preschoolers in Edinburgh on Sunday and had been looking forward to it all week.
But she was left feeling ostracised after lads in the class started up the chant which went unchallenged by coaches - with other parents laughing from the touchline.
READ MORE - Edinburgh residents say they are 'living in slum' with 'garden like a jungle'
“While she was starting her drills and moving up the pitch, the boys all started chanting ‘boys are the best.’ I don’t know who directed the chant or whether or not it was aimed at (my daughter) specifically, but as the only little girl on the field, there was only one person it could be about,” said Dr Kenny.
“My daughter came over to me about five or ten minutes later and she said she felt like no one wanted to play with her.”
Senior lecturer Dr Kenny, from Marchmont, did not want to “name and shame” the coaches or the class, but wished the moment would have been used as a "teachable opportunity".
She said: “When it happened, the coaches and some parents were laughing along."
“It should have been stopped and used as a chance to have a discussion about how everyone can play football.”
Dr Kenny said her daughter loves watching football on YouTube with her father, and she wants to be like American soccer player Megan Rapinoe.
“It’s unfortunate that the underlying message that we heard was about what my daughter can’t do or can’t be. We internalise these messages about what we can and can’t do at a really early age.
"It’s really important to encourage messages and conversations with kids about being able to do anything you put your mind to instead of creating barriers for certain groups of kids,” said Dr Kenny
US player Megan Rapinoe in particular has been an outspoken critic of gender inequality in sport. The player filed a lawsuit in 2019 against the US Soccer Federation alleging pay discrimination.
Dr Kenny said her daughter wants to keep pursuing her interest in football but the family will be looking for more inclusive clubs and teams going forward.
“There are definitely things coaches and mentors can do to make everyone feel welcomed and included. We’re really hoping that this particular class is an outlier because we’ve had a lot of great recommendations from people online about teams with good examples of inclusive culture and teamwork,” said Dr Kerry.
