William and women's football

[Nono22972]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12413893/amp/Prince-William-not-attend-World-Cup-final-watch-Englands-Lionesses-face-against-Spain.html

One again, William's neglecting women's football. The Lionesses made history. It is the first time that the English team (male or female) reached the World Cup final since 1966. We all know that if the men had reached the final, he would've been there and probably would've brought George with him.

Queen Letizia and her daughter Sofia will be attending. What's William's excuse? You are président of the Football Association.

This is really disappointing but I'm not really surprised. The young generation of royals are such a joke compared to previous generations. Yes, the Queen’s children had their controversies but when it comes to royal work, they always got the job done.

On a whim?? Letizia and daughter are going.

And if he did go, all the people criticising him in this thread would still be criticising him

Of course they would be

Some people have extraordinarily long holidays.

How do you know what he is doing on his “holidays”. He and other members of the RF are still involved with their charities even when not on a official visit, that’s only a small part of what they do.

For those saying they’d be pissed off id their dh left for a work trip during 3 days of their holiday - it’s not like he has 28 days a year. He’s already had a lot of time off with the kids.

Plus he is the President of the FA, he should have already planned to go, this is one of the things he’s paid to do. this is akin to being married to a secondary Headteacher then being annoyed they planned to be in school for GCSE and A Level results day because “it’s the holidays”.

I do understand Sunak not going, he’s already given up the 24 election so doesn’t care about getting footage of him with the winners. But Prince William should be there. Not being looks like he doesn’t think woman’s football matters or more likely, too lazy to do his job.

You want Sunak to go? There’s be equal criticism if he did

Probably more

I also don’t understand why women’s football is singled out in this way, unlike men’s it is not mainstream in terms of participation or profile. Plenty of other female sports have far higher participation rates and get a fraction of the attention.

There was a fairly common similar belief in Australia. But over 7 million (of s total population just over 25 million) watched the Matildas play in the semi finals last week. Biggest Australian audience for any sport ever. One report said it was second biggest, and the report said the biggest was Cathy Freeman winning gold in the 2099 Sydney Olympics. So something has changed and recognition of that change has lagged. The two most watched sporting competition in Aus history were women competing.

I think the UK audience numbers for the final could surprise some people.

Football is such a popular sport in the UK it deserves a president who does make the effort.

@CloudyMcCloudy - most Prime Ministers would show up for a football World Cup final, particularly if they wanted the optics of being seen alongside the winners - cynical but would work with some sections of the electorate. But as Sunak doesn’t seem to think it’s going to be close and has clearly stopped caring about optics, I can see he can’t be arsed.

I wonder who does the 'pre work' for these projects? I would think it's mostly their huge staff. They have, I believe, 21 office staff. That doesn't leave a lot to be done by William. What does he know about antibiotic resistance? I would be very surprised if he is doing anything more than approving letters written by someone else, signing things and reading crib notes.

Do they do sports events that much? It’s usually Royals and celebs at stuff like Wimbledon

It’s also incredibly far and people would be equally pissed at carbon footprint and privilege

@Morestrangerthings1 My point about women’s football was really that it’s a pity the media don’t give a fraction of the attention they give to it to other female sports. It is almost as if it’s only when women play a traditional male sport that they get national attention - see the Netball World Cup where England also reached the final a few weeks ago.

I don’t think this holds up to scrutiny. True, netball mainly only gets attention during the Olympics. You rarely see hockey, lacrosse, gymnastics, badminton, dressage. But what about other male dominated sports? When was the last time basketball was broadcast prime time on BBC1? Or shooting? Surfing? Boules? Paragliding? Squash? Ping pong? Polo? In the grand scheme of things there are very few sports that are broadcast outside of the Olympics because there are a lot of sports and little time to broadcast them all! It took a long time to get women’s football broadcast at all, never mind on the big channels. An advantage women’s football has is that people are already interested in the sport.

If you look at the volume of audiences women’s football is pulling, it’s equal to the men’s game. Front page of every newspaper.

I would be very surprised if he is doing anything more than approving letters written by someone else, signing things and reading crib notes.

Plus reading the proposal documents, meeting the team of the charity he’s being asked to head (doubtless more than once), signing off on the campaign etc, agreeing its strategy an his future contact points, who he will be contacting to be potential donors, diarising those meetings and follow-ups etc.

All this, including your quote above, is exactly what a CEO would do in setting up and launching a similar project. That’s definitely considered work. Why is it suddenly different if it’s William rather than a CEO?

True, netball mainly only gets attention during the Olympics.

Netball’s not in the Olympics, actually…

Seriously?? I am imagining things 😱

@PrincessTigger I guess that’s true but men participate far more in football at the grassroots / community /school level than women. Women’s football is still a relatively niche sport for women compared to other sports. But you’re right, it’s where the money is.

It’s in the Commonwealth Games - though probably not for much longer…

Yep, netball is not in the Olympics which is why the World Cup deserves some attention!

That must be what I’m thinking of

I would be so gutted if the commonwealth games ended, it’s so much better than the Olympics

Neither the King nor the heir are going though. Presumably at least in part because of the state visit style issues that brings.

Its also vastly different for a Spanish royal to go to a commonwealth country than a British one.

Read my post "its par for the course at a certain level". Nobody has to take the job.

Just like benefiting from the tax free billions, the pomp, the privilege and the deference afforded to core members of The Firm carries obligations and duties. One of those duties is rocking up to support your national team at major sporting events, even if the event does fall in one of your multiple holidays in the year.

They were not dubbed the "Doolittles" for nothing. Compared to their parents and grandparents' generation they are slackers with good PR teams.

Exactly. I am all for accountability but this just isn’t it. I don’t understand why the OP is so irate over this.

When you watch how much the European royals do compared to ours it's illuminating. They don't take long tranches of time away from their responsibilities. Kate's working in a small radius of Windsor these days.

They've dumped a lot of charities to concentrate on a few we're told. William is chairing a microbial think tank for five years. Then there's children which they're both handling.

Sorry they're not pulling their weight.