UP421 Conversations About Women's Health That Men Avoid Having

Earlier this year, The Football Association has became the first national governing body to mandate training on female health, with Women’s Super League and Championship clubs benefitting from a new league-wide support plan covering pregnancy, the menstrual cycle and pelvic health.

The FA is working in partnership with The Well, specialists in delivering female health strategies across sport and co-founded by our guest today Baz Moffat. 

The Well is built on cutting-edge science, expertise and experience. Through community, resources and support for women and those who work closely with women, Baz and her co-founders are bridging the yawning knowledge and research gap that is undermining the potential of women both on
and off the field of play.

UP was introduced to Baz last week at the Women of Union launch event by today's other guest Preeti Shetty, director of Brentford Football Club and founder of Valeur, an online platform that gives women working in the sports industry the data, skills and networks needed to benchmark their salary and pay compensation.

This episode is sponsored by Leaders in Sport
Leaders in Sport connects the most influential people and the most powerful ideas in global sport to catalyse discussion, and drive the industry forward. Through a series of global summits in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, invitation-only memberships and long form content, Leaders in Sport provides professional executives, both on and off the field, with access to a community of peers to share best practice and trends that are shaping the future of sport. Their flagship event, Leaders Week London, returns from 14 to 17 October, with The Summit taking place at Twickenham Stadium hosting the most senior executives from over 40 countries, including over 100 brands. We'll be there, and you should join us. Visit leadersinsport.com/UP for more information and use UP15 for a 15% discount on your Summit passes. 

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Transcript

Unofficial Partner 421 - Conversations about women’s health that men avoid having

[00:00:00] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: What are the conversations that men avoid having?

[00:00:05] Baz Moffat, The Well: I think they don't even get in the room you know, they don't even to be in 

[00:00:09] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: We're such cowards. 

[00:00:10] Baz Moffat, The Well: yeah, so it's a You know, I was talking with a professional, like a women's rugby team, on a weekly basis they'll have people coming in to talk to them, right, about stuff, like stuff to do with the technicalities of the rugby game, and the tactics that they could be using, and the whole support team is in there like, on their every word.

And then a sports bra expert will come in, And the men disappear. And it's you can get a 4 percent performance advantage by being in the right fitting sports bra. It is a performance piece of kit, just like your boots are. And. the guys aren't there

earlier this year, the football association became the first national governing body to mandate training on female health. With women's super league and championship clubs benefiting from a a new league wide support plan, on issues such as pregnancy, the menstrual cycle and pelvic health. 

To do that. The FAA worked in partnership with the well an organization co-founded by But our guests today, who've just heard who are specialists in delivering? Female health strategies across sport.

[00:01:11] Baz Moffat, The Well: we're asking so much more of our female athletes now in terms of how much they're competing, how much they're traveling, how much they're training, and like the intensity of the competition on the pitch.

Yet we haven't really trained them with their female physiology in mind. And so we have, in our opinion, like we absolutely have to start really looking after these assets. 'cause that's the only way you're gonna commercialize in a sustainable way. Women's sport is if the athletes are on the pitch and we can't do that if we're not looking after them as females. 

 I was introduced to Baz last week at the women of union launch event by today's other guests, Priti, Shetty. Director of Brentford football club and founder of valor and online platform. That gives women working in the sports industry, the data skills and networks needed to benchmark their salary and pay. Compensation. 

This episode of Unofficial Partner is sponsored by our friends at leaders in sport. Leaders in sport connects the most influential people in the most powerful ideas in global sport to catalyze discussion and drive the industry forward. Through a series of global summits in north America, Europe, Asia, and the middle east invitation, only memberships and long form content leaders in sport provides professional executives, both on and off the field with access to a community of peers to share best practice. And trends that are shaping the future of sport. 

Their flagship event leaders week London returns from the 14th to the 17th of October. With the summit taking place at Twickenham hosting. The most senior executives from over 40 countries, including over 100 brands. We'll be there. Of course. And you should join us. Visit leaders in sport.com Ford stroke. 

Up for more information and use up 15 for a 15% discount. On your summit passes.

[00:03:04] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: We should say that we just met. 

We met the women of union. Event on Wednesday night. And that was an excellent event.

And so it was the networking machine that is pretty shitty, working the room, putting people together ever. So thank you. And I just want to introduce you both. Baz, I think we should start with you. Can you just give us a bit of biography, 

[00:03:29] Baz Moffat, The Well: Yeah, so I used to, I used to row, I was on the British rowing team for about four years and then after that I became a personal trainer and had some children and then went and I've, done degrees and masters in sports science and as I was doing my personal training just couldn't quite believe how little women knew about their bodies and was like, I want to do It's ridiculous that they have to come to PT to understand like really simple stuff.

So I decided I wanted to do something much bigger than I was able to do on a one to one basis and then came to find founding the well with two of the doctors.

[00:04:05] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: and what does the world do?

[00:04:07] Baz Moffat, The Well: So the well educates everybody and anybody in the world of sport and exercise that works with girls and women about the female body.

[00:04:16] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: Preeti, when did you first hear about the world?

[00:04:19] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: I'd been hearing about the well for a while from lots of different people. I'd heard Baz's co founder, Dr. Emma Ross speak at a couple of conferences. We. Then happened to, uh, with my new startup, Valor, we were part of an Adidas Breaking Barriers cohort and the well was in the cohort before us and they were sort of loaded as, you know, this is how you, this is how you take a startup from zero to a hundred. And so I'd come across them, you know, you know, through other people. And then I found myself sitting in the same building as them because we now work out of House of Sport, which is a co working space in Barra. And so, uh, then I got to know them way better and just thought, this is crazy. This is crazy that more people aren't talking about this. This is crazy that there is an organization out there that is doing this work and still not working with every single sports buddy in the world.

[00:05:13] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: It is odd, isn't it, how ignorant are, I am, and you say women are, I've been thinking about, since we spoke, some of it is language actually. There is real gaps in knowledge and understanding and education. euphemism is a massive barrier. We talk about things in abstract and we don't actually talk about things specifically. And there's a question here about this isn't just for athletes.

This is people working in, you know, this is everyone. Athletes obviously got to let, get a lot of. Attention and focus quite rightly, but a lot of the issues that you're raising your website, I'm going to point people to your website is an absolute mine of information. It's fantastic. It's just trying to sort of work out what the barriers are.

So let's just start with what's the most common sort of issue that you raise? What do people come to you first about most of the time?

[00:06:08] Baz Moffat, The Well: People come to us because they, There's no one really within their organization who, like you just said, has that language and has that understanding. The energy is very much, most people come to us, uh, for puberty or pathways or talent because I think that's, you know, the stats are just so terrible when you look at how many girls drop out of sports and all sports are a tech, all sports.

Really at a governing body level are attempt to do two things, keep teenage girls in sport and, and have more female coaches in their sports. So they kind of come to us like really trying to get into how can we, how can we educate everybody within our system to keep these girls in sport, but also you know, we, we work.

Uh, international level with, with really high performing teams and they, and what the work we do for them is pretty similar to be quite honest. The language is very different and the way you present it is very different, but they're coming. We still go in at the same level. Let's get everybody really, really comfortable and not freaking out when we like start talking about things to do with girls and women.

[00:07:12] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: so is it a consulting offer initially?

[00:07:15] Baz Moffat, The Well: Yeah, it is at the minute. It is a consulting offer, like where hopefully in the next year or so, like hopefully moving into more of a sort of a tech space offer, but right now it's absolutely consultancy because every sport thinks they're special, right? So and different. And so even though the topics we cover are, you know, menstrual cycles, pelvic health, sports bras, fueling, injury, concussion, like the principles are the same, you need to have a menstrual cycle but we need to talk it in rugby terms or football terms or cycling terms or teenage girls in schools in, in the north terms.

So it's very, like everyone really does what, and that actually Because it has to land, the messaging has to land. So the messaging is always the same, but uh, yeah, it is a consultancy model.

[00:08:00] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: you've got a thing on your website, which is about calling it a period and only a period matters. And in there, it says research in 2016 found that worldwide, there are 5, 000 different

euphemisms 

for periods. It's clear. No one anywhere really wants to talk about this stuff.

And that's a problem. That's an incredible statistic.

Why, why do you think we do that? Why do you, let's get to the, what's happening there.

[00:08:30] Baz Moffat, The Well: I think we like to use the words that we find comfortable and we like to also By putting it in a jokey term, kind of whether, you know, like it kind of makes it not important. So if you know, it's like saying time of the month, we have this game when we go to schools or we work with sports, we call it euphemism bingo.

And we put all, we don't put all of the, all of the words in, but we put let's say 50 words into the pot and then everyone has to write down on a piece of paper. 12, 12, words that they have heard to describe periods, and then we kind of play this bingo game and you know, and it just kind of normalizes it but I think by giving it its correct term, It almost feels like it is a, it is an actual thing and it is something that we have to discuss.

Whereas if you're talking about it in jokey terms and very kind of like, you know, language that doesn't trigger people you kind of have to do anything about it. It's the same with pelvic floors, like people talk about leaky laughs or like having a sneezy wee, and it's the same thing, it just means it makes it comical.

And therefore we don't have to address it because I'm okay, I'm laughing when I say it and and I think that just means oh it's no, it's nowhere near as impactful on me as an individual or my sport if we don't actually use the right terminology.

[00:09:42] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: Preeti, do you agree with

[00:09:43] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: Yeah, totally. And, you know, as, as you're saying it, I'm thinking of all the different words that I have used and we have used, especially, I think, when you then bring that into a professional environment, right? If you go back, I think, as children, there were words you used at home. There were words you used in public with your mom or with your aunt.

But then when you take that into the professional environment and you think, Well, I'm at work now and this is impacting me. How am I going to convey that? And this is, I think, where it comes to who you're talking to, to a colleague, to a friend, to my boss. And I think that's where it sort of becomes, we've been told that you downplay it.

You don't say the word, you say something else, just so that you don't make the other person uncomfortable.

[00:10:26] Baz Moffat, The Well: And you know what Preeti's alluded to there, like it's really important when you're able to talk to a doctor, like you can't talk about, you know, about the female parts of the anatomy. Most women do not know how to describe like the various elements within their pelvis and it's the If you can't describe those parts, if you're not, if you're using like the incorrect language with you, and I've done it.

I've got two boys and suddenly I started describing parts in a way that I felt comfortable. I'm like, no, I've got to use the right language because then as they grow up, they have to be able to talk to a doctor. They have to be able to talk with a, with a coach and about what's happening to their body.

And I think if we, if we set the example, but it's really hard to do because if you've been brought up not describing things in the right way then it becomes an issue. But I think within that professional setting, we have to be encouraging people. And do you know what? Like when I do workshops and do events, I will always use the correct terminology straight off the bat.

But if I sense that that's really putting people off, and that's in the energy in the room has changed. I'll go into you know, talking about the front of the pelvis and the back of the pelvis as opposed to, you know, like the specific terminology and just to kind of keep people relaxed because I don't want people to feel nervous but I think we do have to sort of set the example of using the right words.

[00:11:43] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: So do you think with kids, When you've got your very young children and we use euphemisms for the penis, for example, you know, and we had our last episode was called the big swinging dicks, you know, and that was a, you know, that was a joke, but you can start to see where actually these things are just in the air.

They're in the world. How do you approach that? Cause that's that quite often, that's where these things come from because kids grow up thinking they should be calling it. A sort of a name or a word or whatever it is.

[00:12:11] Baz Moffat, The Well: I use vagina, testicles, penis, I use exactly the right words and my boys they're eight and ten and they use the right words now and they don't even. They don't even know they are using the right words, they're just using the words that we use, and so, and it's and there's no, they don't miss a beat, and it's really, they do not miss a beat, whereas actually if, if you start couching it in different language, then they then have to transition into the right language, but we just use the correct language now, and that, and actually, I had to check myself, like, when I was like, you know, when we first started having this sort of this, this sex conversation, how babies are made conversation, I had to check because I instantly went into let's make this nice and easy and I'm like, no, if I can't do this I don't imagine anyone else can.

[00:12:55] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: interesting. I wonder if it's a generational thing, because I'm, you know, I am much, much older than you two, but I grew up where, you know, it, television it was carry on films. It was Benny Hill. Saucy postcards. It is all predicated on using stupid words. For parts of the female and male body, . And a lot of people think that's part of the British sense of humor. That that's how, you know, we don't get postcards, saucy postcards elsewhere. That was always the bit of the conversation. Actually, this is, you know, This is part of being British.

I wonder if that's just me being much older and whether that's just going to evolve and change as parents have different relationships with their children.

[00:13:36] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: and I think, uh, evolve and change as parents learn more about this, right? I think, you know, it's, it's normal you do what, what your parents did, but A, we have more access to information now. And more and more parents, and I've had this conversation, you know, with, with lots of people of different ages who were saying, well, I'm Googling things, I'm looking, you know, at things that I would have never done before because I didn't know where to look.

And now that I'm learning about it, I'm talking about it differently and I'm educating myself and, and I think that's where, you know, everyone's a bit worried to ask a stupid question, right? But it's now we can go and access that. And that means we have more knowledge and therefore we are doing it differently.

And I always think about this when I'm talking to young people who, you know, I think I'm so much older than they are more comfortable because, and they might not be learning it from their parents. They are learning it from somebody. And. And I do think it's a British thing. I mean, I didn't grow up here, but I think it does fit into this sort of, you know, being a little bit uptight and a little bit stoic and making a joke of something just to put people at ease, which is great.

And a lot of good humor has come out of it. But I think when we pull that then into this is how we behave now, because we don't want to make anybody feel uncomfortable. But by doing that, it's at the detriment of people who need to talk about this. Then I think that's where we're sort of seeing issues, right?

[00:15:00] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: There's also, I mean, I was a teacher before I got into this game, this is another lifetime ago, and I didn't get any of this education, you know, I was in the classroom and. We weren't taught this on teacher training and we are talking here about, you know, a while ago, but I wonder if things have changed.

[00:15:18] Baz Moffat, The Well: No,

[00:15:19] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: both, you're both shaking your

[00:15:20] Baz Moffat, The Well: no. And I think you get a lesson in year eight on how not to get a girl pregnant, and you get a lesson in year eight of there's some ovaries and fallopian tubes, and there's a uterus, and a woman, and a girl will bleed once a month and don't get, you know, this is how not to get her pregnant.

And that person can be, end up being director of sport, head of girls games, you know, head of, you know, like head of women's sport, head of, head of a, head of an international governing body or a national governing body. And never at any stage had any education on female health. And, and that's just bananas.

Like when I, I was at university a long time ago now, I did sports science and we had what was, it was a three year degree. We had popular special populations week which was basically disabled people, 

[00:16:02] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: Oh my God! 

[00:16:02] Baz Moffat, The Well: children, diabetics, overweight, and women. And I'm like, and that was in a, that was it.

And I, and I don't, and actually there's no, I don't think much has changed at university level. When we talk with students, they're like, Oh yeah, like we don't get any education. , but even worse than that, all the evidence, rarely is evidence presented as being said, This was, this was just done on men.

So we've learned from 

men. But just instinctively we extrapolate whatever we're learning into females and they might like reduce, I don't know if it's weight training, they might say let's reduce the load by 30 percent or they might make some adaptation, but it's not based on evidence.

And we've seen that happen. We know that happens in medicine, but it happens in sport. And only 6 percent of sports science research is done exclusively on females. And that's everything to do with the female, every single thing. And so, The research isn't being done, but also, even if the research, and we could get stuck in that part of the conversation, we could get stuck in there's no research, therefore we can't do anything.

We know a lot, but they're 

[00:17:01] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: Could you, do you think, sorry to interrupt, but that's, that's such a strangely, weirdly low number for that. You can't help but thinking, well, why that is,

[00:17:12] Baz Moffat, The Well: because we're

expensive, because we're expensive to study. So let's say you wanted to work out how long you can run for if you had carbohydrate or didn't have carbohydrate, right. And you wanted to test it on 20 people. If you just get guys into the room, like you just get 20 men and they have a daily cycle and you might say, right, okay, so I don't want you to eat overnight.

You come in fasted training, but we'll test everybody at nine o'clock in the morning, having not eaten for 12 hours. But for women. You have to, they have a monthly cycle. So you have to kind of therefore get a group that are like aligned on their cycle or, and then half of them will be on the hormonal contraceptive pill.

So then half of them don't even have a monthly cycle. So we end up being, you need more women and you end up being more, and it ends up being more complicated. And so when I was at uni, people like, Oh, just study the guys. It's easier. And it's Oh, and that conversation is still happening because it's more expensive to study the women.

[00:18:04] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: when I, when we first started talking and this is not long, a couple of days ago and running into this, Podcast. I was thinking, okay, one of the answers to this, this talks to the huge imbalance of women in power in sport and women in management positions in sport. And my simple, I love a simple remedy to complicated issues, more women in senior positions, this problem will ease or go away over time.

It doesn't sound like that's.

[00:18:34] Baz Moffat, The Well: Well,

[00:18:35] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: It sounds like women need as much education, obviously, as, as men, given what you

[00:18:40] Baz Moffat, The Well: women, women do need as much education. But if you go back to that sort of research statistic that like, there aren't enough women around the table making these decisions. And I think up until quite recently, the effects of this hormonal cycle and the effect like we are the only difference people set really thought was we have a period and we have breasts like but actually we didn't really there's many effects of it and that is just starting to play out so i think that people didn't really understand the how different women were we're not just smaller men and we don't just have a couple of things different actually we're fun we're really really different so yeah like We need more women in the room.

You know, like when Apple produced their Apple Watch, you could measure chromium levels, like no one's got any clue, like what chromium does in your body. But there was no menstrual cycle tracker. Now, obviously they've changed that, but it's like, how can you launch a fitness tracking device and not measure menstrual cycles?

So you do need women around the table, but there's, there's many more reasons as to why we are where we are.

[00:19:40] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: And I think, you know, the, again, I think I'm the prime example of this, right? I think the benefit is, Like I, and as I've gotten to know, uh, Baz and, and the well, you know, there's so many things and, and as I've started to get more interested in this space, I realized I need much more education, absolutely. But I also realized that I'm more comfortable having this conversation with other people. And so, even though I don't have all the answers, I'm saying at these, in these rooms, we should talk about this. We should all talk about this. Let's bring people in to talk about this. And I think that's part of it. Part of the the reason for having more women in those rooms because they are more likely to say This is something we don't know a lot about and we have women's teams and we have female staff and you know We I mean women are a big part of our industry We need to understand them better in order to do that.

We need to educate ourselves first So I think that's the other piece here, which is I might not have the answers, but I know there are people who do, and I want to bring them into our rooms.

[00:20:38] Baz Moffat, The Well: and, you know, you just said we, we, we a lot, which is great because it's not oh, let's scoop up all the women and go and give them a period chat and let's take all the women's coaches and teach them how to teach this. It's no, we, we as an organization need to 

get a handle on this. And it's, and because we all, we are all looking after caring for training these women.

And so we all, we all have to have a level of understanding about it.

[00:21:03] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: What are the conversations that men avoid having?

[00:21:09] Baz Moffat, The Well: I think they don't even get in the room you know, they don't even to be in 

[00:21:13] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: We're such cowards. 

[00:21:14] Baz Moffat, The Well: yeah, so it's a You know, I was talking with a professional, like a women's rugby team, and they, you know, on a weekly basis they'll have people coming in to talk to them, right, about stuff, like stuff to do with their, with the technicalities of the rugby game, and the tactics that they could be using, and the whole support team is in there on their every word.

And then a sports bra expert will come in, And the men disappear. And it's you can get a 4 percent performance advantage by being in the right fitting sports bra. It is a performance piece of kit, just like your boots are. And. the guys aren't there and then the menstrual cycle person will come in and talk to them about tracking their menstrual cycles and like you know how great that is and what they can be doing and we know that many athletes suffer with uh, debilitating menstrual cycle symptoms so their training is being compromised on a monthly basis for two or three days and the men, the men aren't even in the room so and that, that gives the messaging to the women that it's not important, it gives the message that the men aren't in the room so when The first piece of advice I give to all guys is stay in the room, whatever you do, do not leave, even if you it feels so awkward and you just really can't, it's so embarrassing, like these words are coming in and you're freaking out, just hold on and stay, and that goes to a family setting as well, if you're at home and your teenage daughters, they're You know that conversation's about to happen.

Stay. Do not leave it just for the mum and the daughter or, you know, like you need to stay in the room because then that just gives the messaging that you're kind of, you're getting there. You might only be on level one, but just stay there.

[00:22:47] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: It's also, I mean, Preeti, there's a, cause this conversation goes across both of the sort of, there's the performance bit, there's the athlete, but there's also a, the business side, the corp, you know, the commercial side I'm wondering what the implications of ignoring this. I can see from a sport is really useful sometimes because Baz can mention performance and we can quantify it really quite precisely and in business, it gets, that gets fuzzier and it gets harder to quantify.

And so people tend to not give it as much credence. I can see a site that sciences and sports science is helping that bit, whether it's people are listening or not is a separate question, but in business, that's more difficult to quantify. But I'm wondering what the performance. Elements are

[00:23:34] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: know, for me, it's, it's critical, right? Because if you think about it, off field, A, we employ women. So there's a, there's an HR Employee retention progression piece here, which is just really basic and to Baz's point, you know, women, there are women who have debilitating periods. There are women that are going through menopause.

There's so many different issues that are only specific to women. In your workforce and just ignoring it or having a policy around it. That's it's covered by the policy or the most common one. We have free period products in our, in our bathrooms. Well done us. And that's great. You know what? It's good.

Okay. But it's not, it's not okay, we've solved it. So I think there's, you know, We want a high performing workforce, right? And, and the sorts of businesses that we run means they work evenings and weekends. They you're asking more from, from your female workforce, the same as you're asking for your male workforce. But this is where I think. We just being able to have the conversation to say, well, how is this impacting us and how can we make it easier, better? So I think there's there's the employee piece. I think there's the fan piece. I mean what the you know, Nielsen Data says 46 percent of global sports fans are women and there's just a general they come to our games They buy our products.

They there's a purchasing power, but you know, are we Making sure that we understand what they want to, you know, do we understand and when I think about this as well from, uh, programs that we put on in the community, right? It's you know, all the kids come and play. Everybody come and do this. It's we're not really.

And this is also where that equity equality conversation comes in. It's not one size fits all. We know that. But as soon as we start talking about some of these, oh, well, this is specific to women. As Baz said, it feels like men say, okay, well, that's for you to figure out. Why don't this, this small group of women should go figure out what women need, right?

And for me, it just feels like we're missing a trick here. Because if we were to think about this and say, and then obviously we've got female players and you know, our wider community, right? And we're just missing a trick because I think if we looked at this and said, actually, let's have the conversation with people who are, experiencing these things, then they will tell us what they want and we may be able to do more than we are doing right now.

And therefore that will lead to them, you know, greater brand loyalty, greater retention, uh, more spend. All of those things I think will happen because we are saying, Hey, we're not leaving the room. We care about you. We want to understand you better, right? And I just think it's not that big a jump from where we are now to say, let's, let's have those conversations.

And for me, a lot of this is, let's not be uncomfortable having these conversations, because I think we learned something. And the sports bar example is such a good one. You know, isn't there an opportunity here to do in, in our club shops, do sports bras? Uh, isn't that opportunity to do sizing and fittings?

There's so many things we could do. And again, it's not for the many perhaps, but you're saying, I hear you. I'm listening to you. Maybe there are things here that we can do more to encourage you to be, to feel like this is, that we care about you. And I think that's maybe a side that we're not thinking about as much commercially.

[00:26:51] Baz Moffat, The Well: And I'd add to that, that we're not even looking after the assets on the pitch. So we're not that. There are, there are a, there's not even a handful. There are a couple of clubs that, you know, that you could name that you know, are doing a really, really brilliant, thorough job at looking after their female athletes, like lots of people are attempting to.

But it's that if, if this exponential growth in women's sport is going to continue, then we have to keep these athletes healthy. And at the moment there is. There are very few people within that workforce beyond the menstrual cycle expert or the women's health expert. There might be one person in that club that has a really thorough understanding, but the general workforce does not.

So we've seen you know, all the, and I know that ACL is an absolute cliche of a conversation and it's kind of like the one thing you instinctively jump to. But we're, we're, we're asking so much more of our female athletes now in terms of how much they're competing, how much they're traveling, how much they're training, and like the intensity of the competition on the pitch.

Yet we haven't really trained them with their female physiology in mind. And so we have, in our opinion, like we absolutely have to start really looking after these assets. 'cause that's the only way you're gonna commercialize in a sustainable way. Women's sport is if the athletes are on the pitch and we can't do that if we're not looking after them as females.

 And it's interesting. You mentioned ACL, you know, foot injuries, and obviously we had Laura Youngson on from IDA who's, who's doing great work in that space, but it's interesting that I suppose it's become, you say it's a cliche, it's become. But it's, it needs to become a cliche, doesn't it? Because it's a sort of flag for other things.

[00:28:26] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: Once people start thinking about that, then they start to think, ask other questions. And perhaps that, you know, that's a useful way in. I've heard on the grapevine that women have children and they have, they give birth and are become pregnant. Obviously in a corporate environment, we've seen that that can be catastrophic for career development in lots of different ways. There's a question, Baz, what's the impact on an athlete of that?

[00:28:54] Baz Moffat, The Well: Well, it depends, but it's but the, you're right. There are more and more examples now of women having babies within, within sports. So like when I rode on the British team, like there was very few people. In fact, I think there was like Paula Radcliffe, like it was a handful of people who had had a baby and returned to their sport.

Like now, It will still often be the first time a club or a, or a sport or a team have experienced a pregnant person within their, within their system. But there are more and more examples of it happening. But it has, when I say it depends, I know that's a really flaky answer, but Let's compare it to ACLs, right?

If someone has an ACL rupture, there is a really, really clear return to play guidance, right? And you know, as soon as that player has had it, depending if they're going NHS or private, if it's a woman or a man whatever that system is around them, how long it's going to take them to get back on the pitch.

And it's likely to be nine months. You're not going to see anyone before nine months. It could be even longer if they're having to wait for NHS surgery. But we don't, Well, we didn't until last week when the fa, when we did some great work with the FA in producing, uh, some, uh, pre and postnatal guidance, but there's very little guidance on how to get these women back to sports, so many of them.

And because their contracts might be up for renewal, they might be worried about their sponsorship deals, they might be worried about, like you, their pay is really critical. They will rush back without the support that is actually required. But if we look at the people that I would say have done it well.

Abbey Ward's done it brilliantly in rugby, it was a fantastic documentary about her and ITV. I mean, I think, I can't remember the timeline, but I think it was within six months that she got back, but they did a really, really thorough, thorough job and it was led by what is described as women's health physiotherapist and her physio team that kind of guided her back.

And that's what we have to see returning from pregnancy as a not And not come up with these sort of crass headlines of Oh, she's back on the pitch after three weeks, isn't that brilliant? No, it's not. It really isn't brilliant. That really isn't brilliant because she is not going to last long.

If she's back, if she's bounced back within three weeks of just having a baby.

[00:30:54] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: And I think just, you know, when I hear that, right, I'm thinking, well, who is thinking of that in the organization. In that example, you mentioned her physio team. Do we have these people who are thinking about this when it happens, especially if it's the first time it's happened in your club and our field we do, right, we have, again, it's a policy. But Unless you've got people within the organization, within the club, who are thinking of this and going, right, well, here's what we need to do. Here's what we need to think about. And not, not all will be the same. And for me, this applies to our athletes as well as to our, our women in our workforce. You need to have somebody that is thinking about this, that is qualified, that is prepared, that has support so that they can give the right support. This isn't just, Oh, it's happened. Well, you know, we'll give them a call and keep in touch days or whatever they call them and see if they're good. Are you good to come back?

Like it doesn't work like that. And it's super important that this process. is built in that the right, the right education is given, the right structure is given, and that the right people are thinking about it. And that for me has to come at the highest levels. It can't just be someone that's Oh, we should think about that.

It has to be embedded within the club. It's every part of. Uh, the organization, and I don't know if that's necessarily happening everywhere.

[00:32:15] Baz Moffat, The Well: So it does, so, In the women's professional game, they now have pre and post natal guidance and FIFPRO produced their post natal guidance, which was a global, you know, global,

like global guidance, but women's professional game in England have now got it, and so all the, all the women's the Super League and the championships have this guidance, which is the first piece of guidance I've seen that looks at the woman, the mother, and the player in equal measure, so it's not, it's really saying Okay, like this is, this is a hard gig getting back to professional sport, but we need to look after you in all of these different areas.

And we know that for some of you actually finding out that you're pregnant might not be welcome news. So how do we handle that really sensitively? How do we handle baby loss? How do we handle the fact you might have a traumatic birth experience and don't want the press and the media to know about that.

So It's not saying that birth is going to be a disaster for everybody, but it's also not like saying, Oh, isn't it amazing? You're going to be a mom. And let's, and so it's really balanced out the, the three elements, which I think is the first piece of guidance that I've seen that is. that kind of addresses those three elements really well.

[00:33:19] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: It's interesting because, increasingly you're seeing athletes, and we mentioned it a couple of times, that these are assets. And so there is the expectation you've got, you know, as soon as you do that, as soon as people start classifying people as commercial financial assets, it does alter, The sort of set of incentives around the thing, because the investors want the assets value to go up.

And that's a, you know, fairly obvious statement, but within that, it means that actually some of these issues are commercially painful for the investor. And I mean, we've seen examples where the, you know, the kit manufacturer, you mentioned the sort of sensitivity to their sponsorship valuation is again, inherent.

We're telling. This generation of professional women athletes, go and commercialize yourself, be a, be a brand, be a creator, do this, do that. And the more that happens, the more something like this, becomes much more commercially. And I'm wondering if that changes how, because we've seen Adidas and Nike getting criticized for the way in which they deal with pregnant athletes. Something in here. is shifting. And I think that this bit of the conversation, and we know money is not sentimental, could well say, right, actually, let's brush past this. 

[00:34:42] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting one, right? It's that, it's balancing, if you do well, if you can do well, if it's bringing revenue in, then people are interested. I mean, I, I have this conversation all the time with, With talking about diversity, right? It's good for the bottom line. And things that are good for the bottom line, people are more interested in.

 It's an easier argument to squeeze through. And I think when you think about, we're seeing this a lot, individual athletes becoming, you know, Influencers having real big platforms and when you see them talking about it, and we are seeing, I think, more of that when, you know, I was at a women in football conference.

I think it was earlier this year and Emma Hayes was talking about she did a keynote and one of the things she talked about was The physical challenges she had when she had her child. And I think she lost a child and she had never talked about that publicly. And one of the things she said was, you know, I was going through all this stuff, but on the pitch, my interviews were, my God, what an incredible, you know, you're winning everything.

And she was like, I was struggling to balance the two because I knew that. In my interviews, I needed to be super positive and inside I was crumbling, right? And that room that she spoke in, I mean, people were crying, we were all just Wow, you've never heard somebody speak so openly and so vulnerably About something so personal that actually lots of people have been through and I know lots of people went up to her and said, I had that experience.

I mean, I'm not at that level, but I had that experience and I, you know, and this is what I was going through and I had to show up to work the next day and pretend everything was okay. And I think normalizing I think if we're elevating these athletes and putting them on a platform and asking them to perform commercially as well as physically, then we also need to normalize them talking about these things that are painful, are difficult, are challenging for them. And I think if you, that resonates, it resonates with people when they talk about that stuff. And if we can show that that's not diminishing their value, then people will be more open to it. Whereas I think there is a perception that only say good things, only talk about good things, you know, only be your most positive, Emma, happy, you know, she makes a joke all the time.

That's the Emma Hayes we know. Actually, that isn't. And her vulnerable side doesn't diminish from how brilliant she is and how much we want to hear from her. Right. So I think for me, you're right. They are assets and We are putting a lot of pressure on them to perform commercially, but then we need to normalize that this stuff sells too, in the crudest way possible, because people relate to it.

 Because I talk about it all the time money, because that's the other thing I think. And I also wonder whether this is a British thing, because I go to the US and they love talking about money. And when I, you know, I'm looking at women's sport, I'm looking at the momentum. I am talking to athletes, I'm talking to women in the workforce, and the one barrier I'm still seeing with all of this is money. There, you know, we know there's a gender pay gap, we know it's going to take 100, 131 years to close it, we know all that stuff. But for me, there is a lack of transparency that we're seeing in the industry, but also specifically in women's sport, there's no transfer market. You know, I know loads of athletes that are saying, hey, we do this career, And then we want to come into the industry and we start from scratch because all those years that we played didn't count. We don't know what to ask for. We don't know what we should be making. My biggest bugbear is there seems to be a trend in our, in our industry at the moment where all jobs say competitive. And it drives me mad because I don't know what competitive means and competitive for me is not competitive for you. And that's not a women problem. I'm pretty sure men also want to know what the salary range is when they're applying for a job. It feels pretty basic, but it disproportionately affects women. And when we come back to that, you know, we need women in these rooms, we need women. Well, they're not getting in those rooms, not because they don't exist, partly because there is a lack of transparency on how to get in. on what you should be paid, on how you progress, like all of those things. It seems to be shrouded in this. You will want this job because our, our organizations are great. And so we'll tell you once you've jumped through 50 hoops, where the, you know, well, what the salary is going to be. And so for me that's something that I find really frustrating because, and we're launching a campaign, uh, at Valor at some point this month around, we're calling it Say the Pay, uh, which is just getting sport businesses to, uh, Post either a salary or a salary range for 50 percent of their jobs.

We're not even saying all just do it for 50 because there used to be this trend that was, you didn't do it for the most senior positions because you know, there's some, what if the others are annoyed and what if people at the same level, but now I'm starting to see it for like social media officer role competitive, and there's no reason to do that other than to undercut the employee or because you're not sure. that your organization has your pay benchmarking right. But what it's doing is it's stopping women, it's stopping people, but it's stopping women, uh, from applying. It's stopping women from transitioning. I've spoken to loads, my, my co founder at Ballor, Ariana is an ex pro footballer. She finished her career at PSG.

She worked in, in the club as well as played and one of her big bugbears is as she moved into working in the industry after she retired they were trying to give her the lowest salary because they were saying you have no experience which is crazy and so for me this is an issue and I kind of feel like it's stopping us from doing all of these other things because we're basically saying well we're going to hide this area and only we need to know and we can't tell you what it is because the demand is so high right because I assume everybody wants to work in sport or they assume. Everybody wants to work in sport.

[00:40:29] Baz Moffat, The Well: We've just advertised a social media role with the 

[00:40:32] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: I saw that. And also Baz and I are on a WhatsApp group because the way you went about it, which I really like, is you obviously did some research and then she went and asked a bunch of people, Hey, this is a role. This is the kind of role I'm going for. What, what is the going rate? Because that's the other thing.

There's no way, which is what we're building at Valor. There was nowhere to check this.

And so she went and asked a bunch of other CEOs. What, what's the range? What should I go for? Because I want to get a good person, but I don't want to go in too low, but also we're small businesses, and I just think we need to be much more open about this.

[00:41:07] Baz Moffat, The Well: and building on that Preeti, like the money conversation, we talk about women's professional sport. The budgets for the work that I'm doing. So we've been going three and a half years now as a business and It's been the hardest thing I've ever attempted to do. So, you know, like we have these conversations pre teens, like it's obvious, like this should be in every club in the country.

This should be in every sport in the country. We are, I would say we're the only people doing this. There are absolutely people out there doing female health research and doing, doing specific, you know, work on whether it's IDA boots or whether it's sports bras or whether it's menstrual cycle tracking apps, whatever it might be.

We're the only people that kind of look at female health in the whole. We're the only people that educate the entire, like the whole workforce and do it at a strategic sort of systemic level. It is, people come to us with 500 quid you know, and we're like, so, you know, yeah, so we've really identified that under fueling in our athletes is a massive problem.

It's costing an organization a hundred thousand pounds a year. Please, can you come in and do a webinar for 500 pounds? I'm no, that's not gonna help, and so, No one has a budget line for female health. No one has a budget line for female health education. The, you know, if you look at the education budgets in clubs, it's often like really over on you know, getting your level one, your level two, your level threes, which doesn't incorporate any of this content.

This has been so hard to get off the ground and so hard to integrate into sports and it is shifting. I am noticing a shift. It is, you know, if you look at it, it feels like it's, you know, but if you take a step back, people go, Oh, my goodness, you guys are doing such great work. From a business perspective, it has not been an easy ride.

at all. And I think that people, people cannot do, like people can easily not do it. They can easily have a conversation about it, get really enthusiastic or hear us on a panel or hear us, you know, at a conference and go, Oh my goodness, let's do it. But then it's tumbleweed after, you know, it takes a very, very long time to get this embedded.

[00:43:05] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: that question, do you have a budget line for female health? Here's the first

question, isn't it? I 

[00:43:10] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: Yes. 

[00:43:12] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: it's interesting to sort of know

[00:43:14] Baz Moffat, The Well: There won't, 

[00:43:15] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: No, I can tell you

the answer will be 

no. And it's really interesting because I mean, you know, I, I've had many of these conversations. I think then it's really interesting to see where, because some of them will find the budget, but where it's coming from, you know, Because the irony is, it's not if you think about it, where should it come from?

It should come from Your sports department, your, you know, where does it come from for the men? But actually it's probably coming from EDI. It's probably coming from like those, like those other little nicey nicey parts for women. That's

not where it should sit. That's a ridiculous place. And again, for me, this comes back to who are the people in the room? That are saying, Hey, we need a budget line for that. That's not, it's not coming out of this budget because that's the budget you want to pull it out of. Right. Who is prioritizing this when you're thinking about your organization, your team, your athletes, your staff. And yeah, I mean, I, I don't know a single organization that has a budget line for it.

[00:44:10] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: Wow. It's incredible, isn't it? When you think about that, listen, there's a, so much in this conversation that I'm, feel like we've just scratched the surface. Come back, we'll have another, we'll have another go at it. But in the meantime, I just want to thank you and I'm going to point people towards the well and the work that you're doing there.

As I say, I've spent, it's a scramble from my point of view, from the way I met you on Wednesday, and then we're having this conversation on Monday morning. So, and I've, uh, I've really, really enjoyed and learned a lot from, uh, it's the world hq. com. So well done on that. And Preeti, as ever. Thank you for your time and for your, uh, networking, putting us together.

[00:44:54] Preeti Shetty, Brentford FC: My pleasure.

[00:44:55] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: It's what you do. And Baz, thanks a lot for your time. All

[00:44:57] Baz Moffat, The Well: Thank 

you. for having me. ​