I’ve been a football fan since I was 8 years old, but I’ve only started to pay more attention to women’s football just recently, about last year. The first game I watched was a men’s football game and to contribute to that, I didn’t have anyone with me to introduce me to women’s football, though at that age I knew there’s a women’s football but that was just about that. I was one of a few girls in my class who actually a football fan and somehow that made think about how football is associated with men for most of the time for many years, even in this modern age.
I started to follow more of women’s football around the time of last year’s Champions League final, where Chelsea FC got into the Champions league final not only just the men’s team but also the women’s team and that was super cool. The Women’s Champions League final was the first one to play. Barcelona Femeni beat Chelsea FC Women 4–0 in that cup final and that was a big win. Turns out Barcelona Femeni is indeed a dominant team. Their statistics in 20/21 season consists of 99 points, made them the league topper of Primera Division Femenina. The played 34 matches, which they won 33 of them with no draw and 1 lose. They scored 167 goals and conceded just 15, that’s a huge goal difference there.
At the end of July, the Women’s Euro final was played between England and Germany. England won the cup with 2–1. This final set some records including most goals in a tournament by England (22), oldest goal scorer (Julie Nelson, 37 years 33 days), and record breaking attendance for a final match of 87,192–a new record for both women’s and men’s Euro final (uefa.com). With all those incredible stats, record breaking and moments, it got me thinking about women’s football, the history, the game, the competition, how the world sees it. And for that I’m trying to put it in this writing while I’m also broaden my horizon about women’s football.
The (Brief) History
The first women’s football game was played in 1895 in England between the North Team and the South Team, with the North Team won the match 7–1 (thefa.com). At that time there were already quite the amount of women’s club. Since the beginning of it, women’s football had attracted a lot of people into the game, for example the Boxing Day game between Dick, Kerr’s Ladies FC and St. Helen’s Ladies drawn 53,000 people into Goodison Park with another thousands locked outside the stadium.
Despite the growing popularity, the FA (Football Association) banned women’s football on December 5th 1921 saying that, and I quote “the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged” and the ban lasted for a quite long time. The FA lifted the ban in 1971.
Turns out it’s not just England that suffered from banning. An article published by fourfourtwo.com stated that France, Germany, Spain and Italy also started to grow interest in women’s football, in fact, France had a proper league in 1918. Unfortunately those countries also suffered from the banning of women’s football. The ban was gradually lifted in different years for each countries between 1950s-1980s.
In the US, the journey of women’s football–or soccer?–began in 1985 when US Soccer officials called the brightest players from regional teams to compete for the States in a competition called The Mundialito. In 1986 Anson Dorrance took over as a coach and the team became the USWNT (US Women’s National Team). Safe to say the USWNT is one of the most dominant women’s football national team. They have won two World Cups (1991 and 1999) and a four-time Olympic gold medalist (1996, 2004, 2008, 2012).
The Game, The Competition, The Attention
I grew up watching men’s football game, so what does it feel like watching a women’s football game? To be honest, it’s as thrilling and exciting as watching men’s football, plus watching all these amazing women kicking ball and became superstar got me in awe. But maybe Maybe some of you still think that women’s football not as popular as the men’s, not going to lie that’s what I was thinking even after I watched the game. Why does it feel like this? Why does it feel like women’s football still less popular than the men’s even though they play the same game? Is it because of the smaller crowds? Smaller stadium? Not enough broadcast time on the TV or streaming platform? Well, if you look it up online, those things are not always the case.
The truth is, women’s football is gaining more and more popularity. A survey done by RunRepeat shown that women’s football should get a 296.7% increase in the UK if the game is on TV, 358.7% increase in the Europe and 304.6% in the US (theguardian.com). For you who live in the UK, the FA announced a deal of three years with Sky Sports and BBC for the broadcast rights to the Women’s Super League (WSL) (talksport.com) and for some matches are available through FA Player or, as in my experience, are available on the club’s phone application.
Women’s football have the same competition as men’s football. They have domestic league, domestic cup and international competition that draws lots of eyes watching the game. Although some women’s club have smaller stadium–therefore smaller attendance–but some matches did brought thousands and thousands of people. Goal.com lay it all out in an article on their website, the biggest attendance number belongs to Barcelona Femeni when they faced Wolfsburg on 22 April 2022 in their Women’s Champions League campaign, 91,648 people came to the game at Camp Nou. There is a game which USWNT played China during the 1999 World Cup. Played at the Rose Bowl, this game set the number of 90,185. With all these facts, I guess we can’t deny that women’s football is growing fast and is getting bigger and bigger every time.
The G.O.A.Ts
Warning: I’m writing this section based off of internet search and football awards winner and nominee because obviously if we are talking about great footballer, both male and female, it will take a long time and endless list. Let’s face it, football fans have their own opinion on this and I think there’s nothing wrong with that and that is alright if you and your friends have different opinions on who is the G.O.A.T. Just remember to be respectful towards other’s opinion.
Alright so, You know the names of Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi or Neymar who are named by a lot of people as the greatest male footballer of all time, so what about female footballer? There are also some names that people put in the G.O.A.T. category. Hope Solo or Alex Morgan (USA), Sam Kerr (Australia), Fran Kirby (England), Alexia Putellas (Spain), and Vivianne Miedema (Netherlands) are some names of great female footballers with great career that I or you have heard. Putellas won the 2021 Women’s Ballon d’Or. There are 30 names on the nominations list. Some of them are the names I put in here, Sam Kerr, Fran Kirby, and Vivianne Miedema.
Female footballers are records breaker too. In the beginning of this writing I have mentioned about the records on Women’s Euro final. There are some other record breaking, for instance transfer record. According to fourfourtwo.com, the most expensive transfer in the history of women’s football is Pernille Harder, Chelsea paid £250,000 to Wolfsburg to bring the two time UEFA Women’s Player of the Year to West London. Another record in women’s football are player with the most Women’s Euro title–Brigit Prinz, five times with Germany, most international caps in global women’s football–Kristine Lilly, 354 caps with USA between 1987 and 2010, scored most international goals–Christine Sinclair, 189 goals from 310 appearances (sportingnews.com). Of course this is just a few of many records in women’s football and they are not going to stop, many more records to come.
The Challenges
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows in the world of women’s football. Behind the lights of the game, there are challenges. From financial to health issue, as if living as a woman isn’t challenging enough, there are a lot of obstacles that female footballers need to face on and off the pitch.
One of the most recent one is the equal pay lawsuit between USWNT and the US Soccer. According to nytimes.com, the fight began nearly six years ago when five star players from USWNT (Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Hope Solo) accusing US Soccer of wage discrimination, stretching from bonuses to meal money on training camps. USWNT stated they earned as little as 40 percent of what USMNT got paid.
Although the lawsuit got dismissed in 2020, but both USWNT and US Soccer have settled the agreement that the women will share $24 million in payments from US Soccer. This isn’t the only financial issue in women’s football. In 2018, the Crystal Palace Ladies were instructed to raise £250 in sponsorship or put up the money themselves if they still want to be in the team (toffs.com). Then Crystal Palace’s Wilfred Zaha made financial contribution to help the team keep on running.
In health care field, women need specific and different type of medical care from men, including in football. For example, menstrual cycle. Toffs.com wrote that some female players tend to lessen their training exercise due to concerns of the increasing of oestrogen level that could trigger the risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury.
Another crucial part of women’s medical care is pregnancy. We have heard a lot of female athletes giving birth to beautiful children but what we don’t know is the treatment, before and after giving birth. This is also what I’m thinking all these times regarding female athlete. Then there is “female athlete triad” which a combination of three interrelated conditions that are associated with athletic training: disordered eating, amenorrhea and osteoporosis (aafp.org).
Women’s football also faced issues that already exist in society such as racism, homophobia, misogynistic and sexist comments, and other social stigma. I have seen some comments like “stay in the kitchen” on social media. I can’t help but think that sadly, these things are inevitable. While there are people out there supporting the support, there will always be those people who cannot keep their hands typing unnecessary comments. Online abuse is something that we commonly find in social media. Therefore there are campaigns that constantly going from time to time to tackle this kind of obstacle.
Looking at its history and bumpy journey, women’s football have come a long way. The sport survived banning and still going strong until today. A lot of moment have proven that women’s football deserved to be heard, with history been made here and there, and numbers go higher and higher. Sure, the challenges are still there and seems like it won’t go away but along with that more history is in the making, the ball will continue to roll and these women are not going to stop. They won’t stop winning and they won’t stop chasing their dreams. As they should.
