Rachel Pavlou: Ensuring women's football is truly a sport 'For All'

S12 Ep 7

Rachel Pavlou was described as the most selfless person in women’s football by former England coach (and a previous guest on this podcast) Hope Powell. Rachel has over 30 years of sports development experience, specialising in the development of women's football at The FA for almost 25 years.

Rachel is currently the FA Women’s Development Manager specialising in Diversity & Inclusion. Her main areas of responsibility are to develop football opportunities for females in under-represented communities.

She is also a designated Expert in Women's Football Development at FIFA, and a Trustee at the Aston Villa FC Foundation. Rachel’s been a key member in the implementation of the Barclays FA Women's Super League, and has managed participation and talent development programmes, along with heading up research into mixed football and initiating the Kick Off Your Career campaign.

Rachel continues to be an integral part of The FA’s work, through her experience working at both the domestic and international level of the women’s game.

It’s no wonder that Rachel was the woman most suggested when we asked on social media for potential guest for The Game Changers. Her passion for the game and ability to drive change is extraordinary, but she does all this with huge humility.

We explore the vast changes in women’s football and attitudes to the women’s game when she first joined the FA in the 90’s. Rachel shares her own path in sports development and coaching, and we explore the development and future of the Women’s Super League and the potential legacy of the Lionesses win in the Euros this summer.

Rachel is very open about the challenge the FA faces in making women’s football truly ‘For All’ and shares her learnings and work in the diversity and inclusion space. We also explore what other sports can learn from the experience of women’s football in the past decade.

Thank you to Sport England who support The Game Changers through the National Lottery.

Find out more about The Game Changers podcast here.

Hosted by Sue Anstiss
Produced by Sam Walker, What Goes On Media

A Fearless Women production