It came as a surprise to me as well, since I've always had a passing interest in football I've never been an avid fan of the world's most popular game. It's all happened in the last 9 months or so. A year ago, I still knew next to nothing about it.
I thought the start of the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada would be a good time to talk about this. In case you didn't already know, the four-yearly competition is kicking off in Canada tonight and features 24 teams rather than 16 for the first time.
Here is quite a cool article on some basics of women's football.
It blows its own trumpet a bit, which as I will discuss later is something we see quite often in women's football. However, this is not surprising, and is understandable given the difficulties the sport has faced.
What follows is something of an essay on women's football - which I hope you will notice I have gone out of my way to be as critical as possible and say the difficult things that some people will not want to hear. My piece is divided up into four (distinctly unequal) parts due to it being so long.
What do I like about WoSo? Women's Soccer (WoSo) is quite a bit different to men's. For about £5 every Sunday during the FA Women's Super League (WSL2) season I can get a coffee and sit or stand (my choice) to watch 22 very fit, attractive and competitive young women who train hard, on top of their day jobs, play in a fully officiated and FA-controlled match in the second highest possible tier of football, from about 2 yards away from the touchline.
The players generally seem to have a calm determination. Emotions run high at times but are generally kept in check. Players pay a passing word of protest to referees at times but the way they just get up and get on with the game is truly admirable. The game obviously means a lot to them and they try incredibly hard. They have my utmost respect. The players may not be as strong or fast as even men's under-19s sides, but they want to win just as much, and it shows.
Sure, there is some playground stuff at times. The defending is not always the best, and there is some naivety in the way some sides go about their game, but the general standard is actually quite impressive. Some teams have very young average ages of sub-20 and so a large amount of inexperience is expected. It's immediately obvious that the players have a lot of talent though and many of them are only just getting to the point of being able to show that.
And on top of this, I've found that just getting in to WoSo will soon soften the hard views developed over years of expecting the best from men's teams .You see a more nuanced picture of player's struggles. No longer is the opposition team's striker a *!"£$ for missing that chance. This attitude follows directly from the supportive and non-abusive atmosphere of WoSo. You can't shout out "You *!"£$ bitch!" to a 19 year old playing in her spare time who misses an open goal. The worst I've heard is "You MILF!", and as the response was a wry smile, that should tell you something.
Much is said about the standards. As I made clear in my blogposts on women's cricket, this is largely irrelevant to how we should perceive the game. I can believe that they are as good as U19s, or as bad as U15s, as long as the product is watchable and competitive and truly represents women's abilities, this distinction is of little consequence to me. And it frustrates me to hear WoSo advocates trying to talk up the gender wars. WoSo should be more popular than U19 men's football not because it's better, but because women are a larger demographic than U19 men, and U19 sides are always transitory by nature -each year the players must change.
Let's start by looking at an example of a financially struggling women's club, Nottingham Forest Ladies FC (NFLFC) who play in the third tier of the league (the Women's Premier League). In the following story, the club's struggles are contrasted with the success of another local team, Notts County Ladies FC, who play in the top tier of English league football (WSL1) and have made it to the Women's FA cup final this year.
http://www.nottinghampost.com/Forest-need-add-girl-power-complete-family/story-26486594-detail/story.html
It's something of a familiar story for, say, the third to fifth tiers of women's football in the UK - all sorts of teams to support and no money to do it with. Clubs like Nottingham Forest Ladies FC (NFLFC) run development sides and a large range of girls teams from U18s down to U11s and U9s. The attendances for the first side in WPL are almost non-existent, and they still have to train and travel quite long distances every other week. These things are not cheap. The players do not get paid, but there are still outgoings, and next to no income. It's something of a travesty to be honest.
I have donated to NFLFC's survival fund before and will do so again if and when they get in trouble. They are a good side with talented players. It goes to show how bad the situation is with women's football in this country when you need to be in at least the second tier (in other words, among the best 18 sides) to get any attention and investment from the FA. As the rewards for being an FAWSL 2 team, they could still only expect match day attendances of around 200 and the right to charge a nominal fee for tickets. Some in the game don't like to admit it, but I don't find that acceptable. Instead of playing the elitism card and revelling in these facts as WoSo critics seem eager to, I'd rather try and put it right.
Anyone who follows women's football will know that NCLFC is where the change is happening at the moment - they have one of the best and most exciting teams in the country. Trying to emulate that is good aspirational goal, I'd think, but judging by other comments on this story, apparently it's unsupportable and unacceptable charity to raise a few thousand to see NFLFC through a whole season, but not any form of charity at all to pump millions into a men's club that's leaking money like water from a sieve.
For the thinkers of such thoughts, those I tend to call "philosophical foes", the following situation is all fine and dandy and nothing needs to be done about it.
1. WoSo does not attract crowds/interest because the standard is not high enough and matches are not competitive enough.
2. The standard is not competitive / high enough because it does attract enough interest to inject finance into the game to allow players to actually be paid or have decent, full-time training facilities and arrangements.
3. Indeed, women need to prove that they can on their own produce a workable and marketable product before we go to any lengths to assist in the development of WoSo.
This is the definition of catch-22. Such sentiments are as packed with truisms as they are utterly unhelpful. The claim is often made that women's football needs to find a way of attracting attention all its own. Something to differentiate it from men's football. However, examples of what may be done to bring this into effect are strangely omitted from the discussion by such procrastinators. It's almost as if they had a vested interest in ensuring that it never succeeds. Strange, that.
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