London, Nov 28 (IANS): The little media coverage that women athletes receive as compared to male sportsmen is leading to fewer female role models, discouraging young women to take up sports as a career, says a Britain-based study.

"Coverage of women's sport in the press still occupies a fraction of the space given to men," said study co-author Deirdre O'Neill from University of Huddersfield in Britain.

One problem identified by her is that the lower profile of women's sport means it has greater difficulty attracting sponsorship and therefore less chance of generating publicity.

In her comparative study of women's sports coverage in Britain's national press before and after the 2012 Olympic Games, O'Neill analysed thousands of articles in newspapers.

It was found that coverage of women's sport averaged five per cent or less of the total sports coverage and there had been little change over the course of a decade.

"Coverage of women's sport has not changed significantly in more than a decade," the authors concluded.

Th findings back up an argument that "sports media remain one of the last bastions of male domination."

The study appeared in the journal Journalism Practice.