An academic at Oxford is suing the university after she was repeatedly left out of the women’s staff football team.

Cecile Deer, 40, from Cumnor, Oxford, a specialist in the political economy of education, claims that she was discriminated against by Oxford University Club ladies’ XI because she had children.

Disputes over team selection may be common in football, but the team’s management may have forgotten that they were dealing with an authority on European employment practices.

The economist, who plays as a striker, will tell an employment tribunal in the summer that the club had victimised her as the mother of three young children, falsely claiming that this made her an unreliable footballer.

Dr Deer believes that her treatment was tantamount to sex discrimination by the university – the club was made a department of the university in 2006. Yesterday her claims were aired at a prehearing review at an employment tribunal office in Reading. The university denies the allegations.

Dr Deer joined the university and became a research Fellow at the Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance in the Economics faculty. She sat on research groups on macroeconomics and on labour and applied micro-economics, and produced a paper on the implementation of the national curriculum in England.

As well as being a leader in her academic field, she also considered herself a skilled centre forward on the football field and signed for the women’s staff football team in early 2005.

The Oxford University Club fields two teams for female staff and postgraduates.

Speaking outside the tribunal hearing yesterday, Dr Deer said: “I am a good player and have always been playing football.”

The team’s manager did not seem to recognise that prowess. Dr Deer will tell the tribunal that, although she turned up regularly to play on Sundays, she found herself sitting on the bench – overlooked, as she saw it, in favour of weaker players without children.

In her efforts to prove herself as a natural goal scorer, the economist joined a rival football team. There her talents were quickly recognised and she was soon elevated to first-team striker. When it was discovered that she was playing for another team, she was kicked out of the university club squad for good.

Dr Deer claims that, when she complained to the club, a “vicious e-mail” about her was circulated to more than 200 staff and students. An internal investigation by the university found that she had not been victimised for being a mother.

The case, which is expected to last ten days, will be heard after the football season ends. The university is expected to field 14 witnesses.

Jessica Hill, chairwoman of the tribunal, appeared to feel that the contest would be a game of two halves. “There is a battle to be had here and I wouldn’t put money on either side,” she said.

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