Wed, January 21, 2026
Two separate surveys reveal serious sexual safety risks for women in UK sport and high bullying rates among female coaches
According to a recent report titled ‘Women’s Experiences of Sexual Misconduct Working in UK Elite Sport,’ there is a serious sexual safety issue for women working in UK elite sport, with 88% of respondents having encountered at least one form of sexual misconduct in the past five years, and with five out of the 260 respondents having been raped.
UK members of the Women’s Sport Collective, a free, global, not-for-profit network supporting women in or aspiring to work in the sports industry with support from Sport England and Sky Sports, collaborated with author Lindsey Simpson to produce the report. 260 people from the Women’s Sport Collective responded anonymously, and this included administrators, coaches, current and former athletes, tv producers, lawyers and physios.
87% of respondents had encountered at least one form of sexual harassment. 40% had been the target of at least one form of sexual assault. In the survey, sexual misconduct was categorised 3 ways: harassment, assault and rape.
3 of the 6 victims who reported that they had been raped (with one of the victims having been raped twice) identified as having a disability. The 19 respondents in total who identified as having a disability reported a higher abuse rate than any other minority group, within the 260 respondents. 93% said that the perpetrator was “always” or “mostly” male.
Lindsey Simpson expressed that this has shown the weaknesses in “efforts to increase inclusivity and representation, and create more balanced and effective power structures that deliver better organisational outcomes.”
She also stated: “The responses from people living with a disability really jumped out and I felt it needed to be noted and it’s something that needs to be explored further…
Was I surprised by the findings? No, but there is something very powerful about seeing the numbers. We know people don’t tend to report. So this gives an idea of the size and shape of the issue and gets quite specific into what actual behaviours we are talking about.”
Simpson also added: “There is a widespread understanding that men are disproportionately perpetrators of sexual violence – that’s well documented – but what I didn’t want was someone to be able to go: ‘You didn’t even ask who was doing it. How do you know it’s not women?’ So I was asking to make sure that I’m not making an assumption that is untrue but also because it can be really hard if you are a woman who is experiencing sexual misconduct at the hands of another woman. You need to be believed and we need to evidence that is also a behaviour.”
Only 38% of participants expressed positive sentiments about governing bodies addressing the issues, and 46% in employers doing so, with only 29% “absolutely” confident in their employers. Women who had experienced sexual misconduct were half as confident in organisations addressing the issues compared to women who had not.
As stated by Simpson: “if organisations are not meeting requirements in risk assessment and mitigation, as this research suggests many are not, they expose themselves to negative legal, reputational, and commercial consequences.”
In another recent survey of 2000 coaches undertaken by Women in Sport and Leeds Beckett University, 30% of female respondents had experienced bulling within coaching compared to 15% of males within coaching, 21% of women said they had experienced harassment compared with 12% of men and 22% of women had encountered aggression or violence compared to 19% of men.
The harassment these female coaches faced mainly came from other coaches and the aggression came mainly from parents. 26% of women reported bullying at grassroots level, 38% in talent pathways and 46% in high performance settings.
Chris Boardman, Sport England chair, voiced: “It is a clear wake-up call. From safety fears when exercising, to online abuse and bullying in coaching, too many women and girls still face barriers across sport at every level.”
Women’s Experiences of Sexual Misconduct Working in UK Elite Sport can be found here.
Women in Sport’s statement on coaching can be found here.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Full licence details can be found here.
