Liz Bloor played netball from a young age and followed a path into coaching whilst maintaining her main career as a Chartered Surveyor. Her business background has helped her in her role as Chief Executive of the Netball Players Association which she had a key role in setting up in 2017 when it became clear that netballers needed to have collective representation in dealings with England Netball. Along with two fellow Directors she set up the association as a Limited company, recruited players to sign up and she has since been pivotal in improving players working conditions and supporting them with a range of issues.
The NPA joined the PPF in 2018 and Liz and her colleague Sarah Gandon now sit on various PPF committees, providing a valuable voice in ensuring the PPF is consistently thinking about how its constituent parts are working for women’s sport to ensure a more level playing field for both male and female professional players.
The Women’s Sport Committee was established in 2022 and brings together key player association staff working with and on behalf of female members. As the female membership of player associations has grown, the committee is there to focus on how to ensure fairness in services being provided to both male and female members whilst also acknowledging that the needs of professional female athletes do vary from their male counterparts. The Committee allows members to share research and information on female players, adding value to each other at the same time.
Funding for smaller associations:
“It would be nice if we could get to a point where the PPF had a charitable arm that smaller organisations could bid into to help them grow their support to the level of bigger organisations”
Pooling of resources:
“With scarce resources we need to ensure that the work that is being done is shared so that everyone is benefitting.”
Raising media profile of all women’s sport not just women’s football:
“We don’t want to lose sight of other sports and get pigeon holed in assuming that every girl wants to play football, the messaging should be that every girl can play any sport.”
Women’s Health:
“With so many more public conversations, this should enable more work in this area to support female athletes to perform at their peak. We’re not smaller men, we’re physiologically different with different health needs.”
Attracting more sponsors:
“With more money allowing elite female athletes to play full time, I am excited by growing media profile but we need to do more to understand the value and attract more sponsors into women’s sport.”
Understanding value:
“As player associations we have virtually no commercial rights to offer sponsors but women are delivering big results with the fraction of resource behind them. We need to look at what we can offer sponsors and look into a network of philanthropic brands who are keen to be associated with female athletes and understand what trigger points would make them tap into the power of female athletes in reaching key demographics and more diverse audiences.”
“If you support people you get happier, healthier and more successful human beings.”
Don’t be afraid to disagree with people or say what you mean. We’re not very good at being willing to confront things head on but remember after the biggest storms you get best sunrises.
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