Australian Sports Commission Chair John Wylie "is taking the direct approach to boost corporate support for women's sport," according to Nicole Jeffery of THE AUSTRALIAN.
Wylie declared this month that "the focus on troubled major men's sports was obscuring the strong performance of female athletes, leaving them 'under-appreciated' by the public and the corporate world." Wylie, an investment banker, "now intends to play matchmaker between the nation's corporate heavyweights and sport's leading ladies by establishing a series of lunches around the country to bring together some of Australia's best female athletes, sports administrators and the chairmen and chief executives of major Australian companies." Wylie said,
"We will be inviting the chairmen and CEOs of ASX 100 companies. One of the things that's holding (women) back is lack of awareness in the corporate world. I know the corporate world and 89 percent of the directors of public companies are male and they naturally support the traditional male sports. That's not a criticism, it's just the way it is." He expects the ASC "to host the first Women Achievers lunch before Christmas, gathering a handful of leading female athletes and administrators, along with about a dozen corporate leaders, and putting them around a table together." Wylie:
"We will have a set of specific ideas for those companies to get involved in women's sport, whether it's sponsoring a sport, a team or individual athletes" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 10/30).
