Nottinghamshire Football Association [FA] has been successfully shortlisted for the Special Recognition Award at the 2023 County FA Recognition Awards for its Gender Equality - White Ribbon Accreditation project. 

The Awards, which will be announced at Wembley Stadium connected by EE on Thursday 23 November 2023, recognise and endorse the best projects, products and services delivered by County FAs over the past season while sharing best practice and learnings from around the country.

A record breaking 242 submissions have been entered from the 50 County FAs operating across England, highlighting continuous improvements and showcasing how they are innovating to improve grassroots football and increase participation across all levels of the game.

The twelve categories which will be recognised at the awards were:

• Brand Engagement
• Coach Development
• Employee Wellbeing & Engagement
• Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
• Facility Development
• Football Development
• Partnership
• Positive Football Environment
• Referee Development
• Special recognition
• Women & Girls
• Youth Engagement

Nottinghamshire FA CEO, Elaine Oram said:

"Nottinghamshire Football Association are delighted to have been shortlisted for the CFA Recognition Awards in the Special Recognition Category.

We are extremely proud to have achieved the White Ribbon Accreditation through our work with Broxtowe Women’s Project and thank everyone who will be supporting us to cascade the message and provide education around gender equality and ending violence against women and girls."

Nottinghamshire FA DSO, Rachael Wilks said: 

"At the end of season 2021/22, Nottinghamshire Football Association reviewed the safeguarding, respect, and discipline trends exposing a threefold rise in cases linked to poor behaviours and attitudes in grassroots football across the city and county.

Further research revealed an increase of adults, holding a position of trust within affiliated grassroots football, had been involved in domestic abuse incidents, thus highlighting a transferable risk of harm towards children in football.

The County FA had also increased its referrals to statutory agencies in respect of domestic abuse concerns involving grassroots participants.

Statistics recorded by domestic abuse charities and police forces also supported a national increase of domestic abuse incidents between 2020 – 2022.

In May 2022, the Home Secretary announced tackling violence against women and girls was a government priority, and whilst the government has a strategy to support this work, the Istanbul Convention holds the government to account by supporting primary prevention work in ‘Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence’.

With such a serious issue impacting both grassroots football and society in general, Nottinghamshire FA wanted to address these negative behaviours / attitudes towards women and girls.

Sport in general is a really effective way to engage individuals, football is accessible to all levels of our sociodemographic thus providing the perfect platform to deliver prevention methods to men and boys; football is also inclusive and therefore a great opportunity to empower women and girls.

In September 2022 Nottinghamshire FA partnered with Broxtowe Women’s Project, a Nottinghamshire charity supporting survivors of domestic abuse. This collaboration was the starting point to help drive forward the campaign for gender equality and tackle violence against women and girls."

The FA’s Head of Operations for Grassroots Football, Tim Foster added:

“I’d like to congratulate Nottinghamshire FA in making the final shortlist for the Special Recognition Award and all of the other shortlisted County FAs in what has been a record-breaking number of submissions this year.

It has been fantastic to see such a strong selection of programmes and projects entered across the twelve categories, and we look forward to hosting our County FAs at Wembley Stadium in November to thank them for all they do in serving our national game.”

For more information on the work of County FAs, visit: https://www.englandfootball.com/explore/county-football-associations