Bloomsbury Football is delighted to announce the Girls Super League’s partnership with Ida Sports.
Using the latest technology and research to continuously push the boundaries for female athletes, Ida are making awesome football boots for women, creating alternatives so that everyone feels supported in the sport and has the choice to wear something they love to play football.
Co-founder Laura Youngson had led a group of women to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro to play a record-breaking football match. The group from Equal Playing Field set the Guinness World Record for the highest altitude football match ever: all to highlight the gender inequalities that exist in sport. As a committed amateur player, Laura had always struggled to find comfortable boots. On the mountain, she realised this was a problem facing female players the world over. Teaming up with her co-founder Ben, they assembled a team of professionals from football and footwear to identify what would make the perfect women’s boot. Cooking prototypes in Laura’s kitchen and testing them during another Guinness World Record match at the lowest altitude at the Dead Sea in Jordan, Ida launched their first boot in 2020, working with podiatrists, physios and biomechanists to re-engineer a boot specifically for female athletes.
CEO Laura Youngson
A brand driven by the necessary need for change. Interest, participation and investment into women’s sport is bigger than ever before and yet time and energy has not been placed into creating women specific sports kit. As a result, many female athletes end up buying a pair of boots that are either a little bit too big or a little bit too small, putting them at higher risk of injury as they play and even impacting potential for progression in their sport. Compared to men, women generally have smaller, different shaped feet, have different pressure loads due to having wider hips, affecting stud configuration, narrower heels, different average height to weight ratio, and different traction needs.
Women are deserving of incredible footwear and not just children’s or smaller men’s boots. By committing to closing the research gaps and listening to female athletes, Ida are giving access to a comfy, pain-free playing experience.
Their attention to detail and endeavour to change the landscape is inspiring and is why we couldn’t be more thrilled to partner. Their belief that you should have choices and access to the best equipment when you step onto the field marries perfectly with our belief that all young women should be afforded the opportunity of the highest calibre of experience, coaching and facilities.
To have such empowering, female driven brands like Miss Kick and Ida Sports actively supporting the GSL and its participants is testament to the Girls Super League project and the desire within the women’s game to increase its participation and recognition. It’s extremely important to have these brands on board and we’re incredibly glad to have them along for the GSL journey, strengthening the community of the women’s game. To celebrate the partnership, Ida Sports are giving away one pair of Fustal shoes and one pair of women’s football boots to the GSL community.