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Original poster

New rules for women's football?

26 replies

TiggyD · 03/07/2012 20:46

(Didn't want to derail the tennis thread)

At the moment women's football gets compared with men's football. Kind of impossible not to. They are exactly the same game but in my opinion, and many, many others, the women's game is not as good as the men's. Lots of reason's why: The women's game is amateur, physical differences between men and women etc.

So, why not change the rules of women's football to make it more suited to women and harder to directly compare with the men's game?

  1. Smaller pitches. Only 80% or 90% of regular pitches. Would lead to less hoofing the ball into spaces and more skill needed. It would also mean less running.
  2. Play 80 minutes. When you get a professional team playing a semi-pro team in a men's cup the commentators always go on about the amateurs tiring after 80 minutes and the quality of football dropping. Just have shorter games.
  3. Play 2 halves of 40 minutes, but after 20 minutes of each half have a 5 minute break. It would help keep players fresher for longer and give the managers time to talk tactics. It would also help make the game more marketable to TV companies because they can get more adverts in.

In cricket you get 5 day games, 4 and 3 day games, one day games and T20 games. People can cope with those when the basic game is the same. I think my changes would really help women's football.

OP posts:
tribpot · 03/07/2012 20:57

So is the problem that the women are amateurs, thus able to train to peak physical fitness, rather than inherently having less stamina than male (amateur) players?

Personally I'd shorten all football matches to a brisk half hour, but assuming people do actually want to watch them I think reducing the time would be a good measure equivalent to women's tennis. Smaller pitches would require an investment in infrastructure that simply wouldn't be made.

I like the idea of making it essentially 'a game of four halves' but it sounds depressing that the only way to make it worth watching is if it didn't interfere with the meerkats or MFI. (Does MFI still exist?)

Aren't the England women's team relatively much more successful than the men's? (I'm not saying they could beat them in a match, although ... ) I'd just stand the men's team down for a few years. Interest in the women's game would probably increase as a result.