‘Girls Fighting the Stigma’ Gala Day a success

Fighting a gender stereotype is no easy feat, but for high school student and passionate footballer Mikayla King, this challenge has stoked the flames for greater female football participation in the Ambarvale region.

Motivated by society’s perceived attitude towards football being a male dominated sport, Mikayla put together the ‘Girls Fighting the Stigma’ Gala Day, with help from her local club, Bradbury Ambarvale Bears.  

She approached schools in the surrounding suburbs to invite them to participate in the event last Friday, and secured 10 teams in total consisting of 120 girls from years 3 to 6.

Ambarvale Sports Complex hosted the Gala Day, with an excellent round robin tournament providing some fantastic matches, before culminating in semis and finals in the afternoon.

Mikayla’s ultimate goal for the event is to encourage more girls to register to play football for their local club.

With the Gala Day proving to be an enormous success, there are plans for it to become an annual event

Former Westfield Matilda and Football NSW Game Development Officer for Women & Girls, Servet Uzunlar was blown away by the passion shown by Mikayla in regards to growing the female game.

Based on the 2015 season, Football NSW has recorded a rapid rise in female football participation thanks to the success of the W-League and the Matildas.

Female footballers made up 21% of last year’s registered footballers across Football NSW associations, and Uzunlar believes projects like Mikayla’s Gala Day will push that figure higher in future years.

“It is fantastic to have the opportunity to support not only an event that aligns with what we are trying to work towards, but to support females like Mikalya who want to make a difference in women’s football,” she said.

“It was especially rewarding to see girls who had never played the game before have such a positive and rewarding experience.”