Richard Bath: ‘There is a consensus that the BBC is turning SPotY into a celebrity event’

HELL, SO the saying doesn’t go, hath no fury like that of a sportswoman scorned. This week’s announcement of the BBC’s all-male Sports Personality of the Year shortlist was certainly followed by an explosion of indignation and ire; so far, time has not been a great healer.

Rather than dissipating, the sense of injustice felt by sportswomen has hardened, while the manner in which the indignation has been expressed has become more strident.

Triathlete Chrissie Wellington, who many expected to see on the shortlist after she won a fourth World Ironman title in Hawaii despite suffering from a torn pectoral muscle, extensive road rash and a severely bruised hip and elbow from a bike crash two weeks earlier, is apoplectic and has urged women to “vote with their feet” and boycott the event.

“They have already invited me but I’m not going to go,” she said. “I would like it to create a snowball effect because that would mean a message would be sent to them.”

Scottish Solheim Cup-winning golfer Catriona Matthew, a usually measured soul, said simply that the BBC were “completely stupid” to allow a situation that led to a “profoundly disappointing” shortlist.

Scots badminton player Susan Egelstaff went further, saying that “this proves that women’s sport is not viewed as the equal of men’s sport”.

Triathlete Catriona Morrison added: “I’m disgusted, but it’s not enough simply to be disgusted – we need to harness the tsunami of revulsion and use it to galvanise opinion and turn it into concrete action.”

The source of much of the ire was the make-up of the selection panel which shortlisted athletes such as tennis player Andy Murray – who has failed to win a really significant tournament this year – over a whole host of women who have led the world in less high-profile sports.

The inclusion of lads’ mags Zoo and Nuts in the 27-strong panel of “expert” judges was particularly controversial, although it was actually parochial provincial newspapers such as the Manchester Evening News – who chose three often non-playing non-British footballers in Dimitar Berbatov, Patrick Vieira and Yaya Toure – that really brought the whole process into disrepute.

“The fact that shitty mags like Nuts and Zoo were on the panel was as laughable as if they’d put Cosmo and Spare Rib on it,” says Egelstaff. “The fact that there were no women on the panel is crazy because it doesn’t take a genius to work out that if there are only men selecting the shortlist, then it will be overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, male.”

Talking to top sportswomen, there is a surprising degree of unanimity around the issue of SPotY, as we’re encouraged to call it. All agree that it is an important event because the BBC, the only media organisation whose raison d’etre is public service broadcasting, places such store in it. Outside the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, it is one of the few occasions when so-called minority sports have a chance to market themselves to sponsors (only 0.5 per cent of sponsorship goes to women’s sport) and the nation’s youth.

“There are men in the minority sports who are at the top of their game and were also overlooked, men such as triathlete Alistair Brownlee,” says Morrison, “but it’s overwhelmingly the high-achieving women in minority sports who have been disadvantaged.

“The wider issue is the skewed media coverage and the lack of column inches [for minority sports], because at the moment we’re told what sports we should like and they’re overwhelmingly male ones. If we don’t engender positive female role models, we’re not encouraging women to take part in sport. Society is patriarchal, and this goes well beyond sport, but what we need is positive reinforcement, not negative reinforcement.”

Despite a report in 2010 showing that 61 per cent of sports fans would like to see more women’s sport on television, only five per cent of all sports media coverage is of women. There is a consensus that the BBC, instead of fulfilling its brief as a public service broadcaster, is chasing ratings and turning SPotY into almost a celebrity event (“although some of the past winners have made the term ‘sports personality’ a misnomer – I mean, look at Nigel Mansell,” laughs Egelstaff).

The solutions vary, although most are against a quota, which is seen as tokenism, or the public vote abandoned after anglers launched a concerted campaign on behalf of Bob Nudd. Matthew, who is up for the team award but expects her Solheim Cup team to be pipped by England’s cricketers, thinks that the outcry will ensure an all-male shortlist never happens again; Egelstaff wants some women judges; Morrison wants a longlist based around objective criteria and believes that if the panel is made up of knowledgeable commentators who work across all sports, such as Doug Gillon, Clare Balding and Donald MacRae, a repetition can be avoided.

“But in the long term,” says Egelstaff, “we don’t need to change the voting process, we need to change people’s mindset so that women’s sport is seen as the equal of men’s.”

At least there’s one piece of good news for the, ahem, fairer sex. Ever mindful of the need to ensure there’s a good gender balance at the awards ceremony, the BBC has ensured the evening won’t be an all-male event by inviting Belgium’s all-female Scala Choir to perform. So boys do sport, girls sing. You couldn’t make it up, even if you wanted to.

• With female athletes absent from the official BBC shortlist, we present an alternative top ten:

• Catriona Matthew (golf) Beat world’s best to win Lorena Ochea Invitational, Scottish Open and part of Solheim Cup-winning side.

• Sarah Stevenson (taekwondo) Won world title in year she lost mother to cancer and father to a brain tumour.

• Keri-Anne Payne (swimming) Won world 10km open swimming.

• Kim Little (football) Scored winner in Scotland’s first win over England since 1977, and winner in Arsenal’s FA Cup final win. • Rebecca Adlington (swimming) Won world 800m freestyle to become reigning world and Olympic champion.

• Kath Grainger (rowing) Won world championship gold to become most successful female rower in British history.

• Beth Tweddle (gymnastics) Won her third successive European title on the uneven bars.

• Hayley Turner (racing) Won two Group 1 races, and is Britain’s most successful female jockey.

• Victoria Pendleton (cycling) Won silver and bronze at the Worlds and team sprint gold at the Europeans.

• Catriona Morrison (duathlon) Won European Duathlon Championships.