Womens football....leading headline BBC news....why? Cos very few people actually care

[UnbelievablyStressed]

Let's be honest. The BBC feels the need to have this as a major headline for woke reasons. The reality is few people give a shit....

But that's part of my point. I n my local experience not many schools offer girls football but PE departments are being pressured to put on girls football despite a lack of resources and overall demand. Sure some boys don't like football or sport but that doesn't mean football is incredibly popular for boys/men evidenced by the sheer amount of money sloshing around the premier league.

After the world cup (womens) we seem to have had a local temporary surge of some parents highlighting the dearth of girls football in school resulting in schools desperately trying to put something on despite having no resources and this often was at the detriment of other sports. The boys had a number of well established league and cup competitions and it simply wasn't feasible to replicate these for girls.

at the women's level, yes, we have the WSL but in a small town like ours we have a local non league men's team which acts as a business with a small stadium etx. But the women have essentially some parkland and there are a few family members to observe. As mentioned earlier women s football is still essentially an amateur game unless you look at the wsl and even t other the wages are not great relatively (20K - 50K) and so you can't expect many women to dedicate themselves professionaly.

It therefore just seems disproportionate to have such focus on the women's international game when it doesn't reflect the reality of the grass roots or professional game and so it does seem artificial in my mind. This is not to take away from the achievement of the players or the enjoyment of the fans only to say that we have to reflect more broadly in women s sport and football's place in it.

Do you live in the past somewhere??

I live in a very rural (properly agricultural not middle class leafyness) area, hours from a big city. We have two mens football teams near us and both now have a women's team. All the local, small primary schools have girls teams. There might be one year when there aren't enough primary girls to make a team, in ehich case they mix the teams.

I really do not understand your point about resources as the resources are a pitch or some outdoor space and one football. And a PE teacher who knows how to play football, which I'm guessing is, ooh, every single PE teacher out there. Netball and hockey are more restricting in terms of kit - hoops for netball, fewer players, everyone needs a hockey stick etc.

I am hearing that you just don't like women's football and have got yourself in a pickle about it worrying that its going to be more popular than the sports your kids like.

It's not lthay I don't like girls football it's just that some of the down as seems atrifical . At my girls school there are people teachers being pressured to learn the rules of football and desperate hunts for linesmen (women) to get these games on. I am glad you have resources in your area but some areas simply don't and I don't know here the funding is coming from. As I have said there aren't the floods of boys wanting to play netball or hockey in general so we have quite an asymmetric situation.

A relatively small proportion of football supporters in general support a women S team while for sports like tennis and athletics it's is much more balanced. I am just saying let's not let women's football be a distraction from the many other fine sports girls and women participate in.

Sounds like your school is really trying to make it work, good for them.

You really should come round to football. It's cheap, its a team sport and encourages true cardio fitness. Far more satisfying than netball for girls who love running about but want a team sport.

mids2019
I would say that the main problem is that women’s sport generally is not celebrated enough and promoted in the media.

We need to be pushing for opportunities for our girls to be active and try as many sports as possible to enjoy. There is enough evidence out there that girls activity levels drop off sharply at puberty.

As Radioundermypillow says, it’s much easier to have a kick around informally with a ball than gather 10 or 14 peers to meet at a netball court.

I think your being unfair on netball which enjoys history slightly less popular than football for girls .

https://www.birminghampanthers.com/
My daughter has the opportunity to get trained by members of this team which seem well organised but in future their international players will never enjoy the publicity that does around women S international football. I don't think that is quite fair.

A lot of girls want to do basketball as a profession from netball yet again schools or clubs do not have the infrastructure but there is no focus on this.

Girls should be free to enjoy any sport they wish but I think we have to consider that make sporting preferences and participation may differ from womens and it is not achingly sexist to suggest growth in women sport should be organic rather than engineered.

So your gripe is that your daughter's sport isn't getting as much publicity. That is because netball is not as popular as football. I think that's the same in every country in the world that has both sports. Sounds like your dd has joined a fab club. Football isnt going to change that.

Well, personally I'm not into football but the women's football win is great for the nation and good to see huge numbers of fans in London, watching the tour bus go through. Good to show women and girls can also be celebrated for this particular sport, excellent example for young people today.

Netball has a very similar popularity to football currently though football is gaining in popularity. To mind it is being pushed aside by a more promoted sport. It's an observation more than a gripe.

Football is great but I don't like to think it is pushing aside other sports in the interests of increasing numbers.

Netball is a great sport with great teams but there is no fear of any of it being televised

Given the massive lack of coverage of womens' sport, I can live with wall to wall coverage at the moment.

If you don't believe me, go to the weekend sports supplement of any mainstream newspaper and count the number of stories that involve women. Maybe not this weekend as they will probably still have stories about the football, but in a couple of weeks.

Something like the Times has 12-16 pages and there might be one story - usually about someone easy on the eye like Emma Radacanu or Katarina Johnson-Thompson. There's nowhere near 50% coverage. Usually no more than half a page.

It's fair enough to gripe that it doesn't get the publicity, but it shouldn't be at the expense of women's football, there should just be more coverage of womens' sports.

Women buy newspapers and pay for subscriptions too.

Arsenal Women sell out the Emirates and have sold more tickets than some of the men's PL teams-

first link I found with google https://www.espn.co.uk/football/story/_/id/39664597/average-arsenal-wsl-crowd-bigger-10-premier-league-clubs

It seems that a school is deemed ragingly sexist if they can't provide football for girls and out local pe teachers don't know the rules or know them in enough technical detail to run the game properly

I might be showing my ignorance here but aren't the rules the same for men and women? So if a school can accommodate the boys playing, it can accommodate the girls?

Obviously may not be the case in an all girls' school.

I agree - definitely do away with extra time, anyway!

@dynamiccactus

That's true but some of the women teachers aren't quite willing to take on an extra sport and the male teachers don't want to double their workload. It's a resource issue really. The women teachers are being expected to take more on as the boys don't do netball or volleyball.

Or any typical day. Just flicking across today’s Times app there’s a woman (lionesses coach dancing), one woman golfer, 10 with men and one showing horses (sex of horses and riders unknown).

If you are a chav mum you will be really in to chav ball.