Female athletes treated as 'second class citizens', says former Aussie hockey coach

Australia’s former women’s field hockey coach says female Australian athletes are treated as “second-class citizens” when it comes to sponsorships and media coverage. [caption id=“attachment_588051” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image, AFP[/caption] Ric Charlesworth, who coached the Australian women’s team to Olympic gold medals in 1996 and 2000, and is now an ambassador for the Australian Womensport & Recreation Association, said Thursday there needed to be a change in the public’s attitude toward women’s sport. Charlesworth, also a former men’s hockey player and Olympian, says “the issue is societal …you only have to look at the boardrooms around to country to understand that occurs.” He says despite Australian female athletes’ success internationally, women are “paid a token by their sports federations compared to their male counterparts, and they have to make enormous sacrifices to represent their clubs and country.” AP