West Ham football club has pledged to take over the direct running of its women’s side after being accused of discrimination by the team’s chair.



Stephen Hunt, the chairman of West Ham United Ladies, has lodged a formal complaint with the Football Association after claiming his players were forced to play in last year’s kit and to pay for their own transport to games.

The women’s team was unable to afford physiotherapists, Hunt claimed, and players were having to warm up by running alongside a busy road after they said their access to the club’s training grounds was restricted.

The club has now announced its intention to bring the running of the women’s side “in-house”, saying that the current arrangement, in which “the day-to-day running of the [women’s side] was transferred to a third party some years ago ... has simply not worked”.

Hunt, the club said in a statement, had “refused to align with West Ham’s principles throughout his tenure as chairman and has, on a number of occasions, threatened the club.

“The club have been working for some time on plans to take West Ham United Ladies FC ‘in-house’ and, in light of Mr Hunt’s most recent deeply concerning comments, we will now be seeking to do so at the earliest opportunity.

“We will, of course, seek to maintain the current West Ham United Ladies FC squad personnel where possible, and provide them with the best possible support and management moving forward.” As a result, the statement said, “women’s football at West Ham United will become bigger, better and stronger”.

West Ham United Ladies was founded in 1992, and now competes in the southern division of the FA Women’s Premier League, the third division of the female game. But the formal relationship between the two sides has historically been unclear.

Asked who owned the side, Hunt told the Guardian he had “no idea”. He was appointed chairman in March 2015 by “a committee of fans” after seeing an advert for the position on an Essex football website, he said.

He had complained to the FA that the club was in breach of its obligations to promote grassroots football, and had discriminated against the women’s team, he added. An FA spokeswoman confirmed it had received a complaint, which it was reviewing.

In 2014 the club was forced to defend itself against accusations of neglecting the women’s side, after the then captain Stacey Little set up a fundraising page to appeal for donations to pay for kit and pitch hire, describing the team as “self-funded”.

The former West Ham player Julian Dicks, who managed the women’s team in the 2014-15 season, said he supported the club’s plans to bring the team under direct management. “It was clear when I was the manager, and it’s clear now, the current administration isn’t working,” he said. “The girls there work very hard and deserve to be successful. However, they will only get that if the club and the team are managed properly.”

Hunt said if the situation had not changed West Ham Ladies would have gone bust. “So on the one hand I am delighted that West Ham United have been reminded we exist. Someone had to say something and it may as well be me.”