facilities and opportunities should be equal - Pernille Harder

star

Pernille Harder

, who was voted the UEFA Women’s Player of the Year for 2020, joined the Blues for a reported world-record fee from Wolfsburg last September.

Harder believes equality in football does not mean women earning as much as the men at the top level, but it means the facilities and opportunities should be the same.

“The question of equal pay and equal salaries, it will take a while, even if it will ever be the same. Men’s football is just on another level I think,” she said.

“Girls have to fight to find places where they can get good training and get good coaches. It’s not really there for them. I think that’s the biggest issue, for girls to be able to get to a really good academy and access the best coaches at an early age.

“I can personally say it was my mum who coached me until I was maybe 14, and nothing against my mum (but) I think there would be better coaches!

“Already at that age, you can actually learn a lot. Then further on there is still a big difference between how we have it and how men’s teams have it. That’s what we have to focus on."

She compared the facilities at Chelsea and Wolfsburg and said that there she had even seen differences.

“It’s very professional at Chelsea and I think they try to copy how the men are doing it,” she said.

“It’s just the difference that we might have three physios, and they have maybe 15, and we have two pitches and they have 10. So that’s maybe the biggest difference. The set-up is really good, but again it’s still not equal.”

She was part of the Denmark squad which was involved in a pay dispute in 2017 with the national federation which ultimately led to the cancelation of a World Cup qualifier.

She has also supported the

PlayProud

project which aims to make grassroots football more inclusive for the LGBTQ+ community.

When she was asked about the obstacles, she answered:

“It is that maybe you don’t feel that you can be yourself in some areas.

“PlayProud educate coaches to create an environment where everyone can be themselves, no matter what their sexuality or race, and that’s important because there might be a lot of good footballers who don’t feel comfortable in the environment they’re in, and I think you especially see that on the men’s side.”

She is in a relationship with her teammate Magdalena Eriksson and believes attitudes towards homosexuality have changed dramatically in recent years.

“The next generation has a new view on sexuality, it’s much more integrated in society in today than it was 10 years ago, so for the next generation, it will be different. I hope so at least.”

Follow

for the