Football - what if women ruled the world?

[Katiekitty]

I've been wondering - if women ruled the world, would football quietly go away?

I'n not concerned whether it was played by men or women, but, if women held the majority power, as men do now, would football players be billionaire heroes? Would it make the news headlines? If not, where might the seemingly endless money involved in the game be channelled instead?

Whadya reckon?

I think it's more the whole culture of it that a lot of women (and men) dislike, not the game itself.

Figures show that 30% of people who watch live matches are female now, it's a growing cross-gender spectator sport.

In the 20's and 30's it was huge because it was cheaper and in many ways the working man has been somewhat priced out of it to some extent.

I'm a football fan in a tapestry of football fans who follow football almost to the point of it being a religion (I'm a fully fledged atheist)...Now don't get me wrong my family come first but there again my family are all as excited about football as I am.

I do however believe that footballers get paid too much.

Bankers
Pop stars
Some civil servants
Celebrities

I could just be jealous, who knows?

I've heard somewhere that football was a woman's game here too. Not as in just that women played it, but it was a sport for women rather than men. Then they got banned from playing it of course.

I don't recall the ins and outs, and of course the history is now written through the lens of male domination, but IIRC it was a colleague at a conference who was an academic and sports reporter.

Alice - there was a tiny bit about that on Edwardian Farm. The FA apparently banned its clubs from allowing women to play at all on their grounds or practice fields and effectively cut off the oxygen.

That's really interesting AW and SP. So the FA hasn't changed much since then . I could was lyrical about the drawbacks and vagaries of football but I'll spare you all .

I think HerBex is spot on especially with the media coverage/manipulation. I am heavily into sport and have often thought that sports coverage is very one-sided in terms of male and female. There are very few all-female sports regularly shown on television e.g. women's football, netball, softball, women's rugby, women's cricket. Yes you could use the argument about the fan base and people "not wanting to watch it" but when they want to they can show a lot of coverage of minority sports such as athletics, rowing & cycling. So I think the media can influence people's perceptions of a sport and have the power to make sports personalities and prioritise a sport when they choose to. So I think that it is a red herring about football's fan base as fan bases can be created.

On the flip side they seem to manage to televise a number of snooker taournaments where there is hardly anyone in the audience at the event. That would suggest that there isn't that large a fan base for that sport or at least not large enough to warrant such promotion on the television.

There is a lot of sexism within the sports themselves which stop female progression. For example my sport has unequal events for men and women at the Olympics (a full Olympic Team would consist of 28 men and 20 women; 8 events for men & 6 events for women) and it isn't the only one. Snooker - why shouldn't men and women compete against each other? Tennis also has unequal events (best of 3 sets for women at major tournaments) and don't get me started on the dress code/noise debates etc!

In answer to your question OP I think that there would be a much more balanced coverage and encouragement of all different kinds of sports and promotion of both sexes within a sport would be much more equal. As a result men's football, would be certainly less prominent than it is now.

Football is hugely popular with women as well as men and the number of women watching and playing football is on the rise. I think to say football is responsible for the lack of interest in politics in the country is ridiculous to be honest.

I too get sick of football being a national obsession and it annoys me that you can't get away from the topic. News about football matches, transfers, who scored what, is on the radio & tv all the time. I also find it annoying that the way that women are joining in is as spectators and commentators to matches that are played by men.

I do think it distracts men from real life issues the way that stereotypically women's issues (fashion, beauty etc) distract women. Oh, and I never watched Corrie or Eastenders in my life!

I had a theory that, now we don't have any major wars going on, it's a way for men to feel part of a tribe, a collective. In previous centuries, there were always wars for men to fight and now they need a new way of expressing that primal instinct of belonging to a tribe and expending energy. Just my theory although I think that HerBeX's post about the government making an active decision to promote football to distract the masses (got to do something now that religion is on the wane) is very interesting.

I heard on the radio this morning that the tax on petrol is due to go up by another 5p a litre soon. I bet Davd Cameron is hoping people will be too distracted by whatever's going on in the world of football to notice.

Southeastastra has a point about envying the complete immersion in something that fundamentally doesn't matter for 90 minutes. I have often wished I give a shit about football for exactly that reason.

Also, the fact that it is an externally scheduled 90 minutes is such a bonus for fans. There's no quibbling. postponing, rescheduling or possibly not having it: "THE FOOTBALL!" goes the ungainsayable cry. Then you can have Match of the Day, Football Focus etc - which have almost the same timetabling power as the actual fixtures.

It's like watching people shuffle off for fag breaks and wishing you smoked - obviously you don't literally wish you were actually in thrall to a mindless addiction, and you could go off and join in if you wanted to, but there's something in it.

Herbex I think you're overplaying the role of governments in supporting football. Sure the Fascists in Italy made a big thing about the success of their national team in the 30's, but the original International Competitions - Olympics and the World Cup had nothing to do with civilian governments. Enthusiasts and promoters tapped in to a pre-existing level of support (I think the record crowd for a football match was in the 30s) rather than created it from nothing.

I reckon you're closer to the cause of general apathy towards political issues (in both men and women) when you mention TV - that's the big change since WWII and is what occupies so much of people's free time that they might have, in the past, spent attending various rallies, speeches and organizations.

I'm not a football fan by the way! Yes I agree they are all over paid and not a few of them are terrible role models to hold up to young people.

If women ruled the world would it disappear? well, who knows - I guess it depends which women were in charge; in some cases we might see 24hour football broadcasts in order to keep the male population subdued and compliant!! ... oh and to stop them attending any political meetings and coming up with plots to overthrow the matriarchy!

southeastastra

i'd love to have something that takes my mind off worrying about everything for 90 minutes

Your local Blockbusters should have a copy of Sex and the City 2

MrI, the role of government in all sport in the 1920's and 30's is really fascinating. But of course you're right, TV was really the big difference and govts were involved in ensuring that national TV channels screened games as they were considered as important as operas, history programmes and "improving" stuff.

Do you remember when the meejah used to write outraged harumphing articles about the prospect of premier league games (or first division as they were called then) not being screened live on the BBC? It seems so quaint now.

Actually you make a good point, maybe we will need to not just keep football but in fact make it even more important than it is now in the transition period after the collapse of the patriarchy.

God I've just thought - if we told menz that there would be free to air football on a 24 hour channel if only they gave up every patriarchal privilege, would we have a matriarchy established very soon?

Or would some of them start mithering about the cricket?

I doubt it like everything else it is good only in moderation. A bit like eating chocolate it's okay to have fun eating it for a day or two but all day everyday will not end up well.

What's this menz?

An affectionate term for men, Saltatrix.

You wont have to worry about "Keeping" football in the headlines because it will ALWAYS be in the headlines, nothing will change that.

But it's good that the feminists take the time out to care.....it really is.

Sport in the political arena?

In Rome senators and the like actually paid for games in arenas because it hightened their profile giving them a link to the punters and easing their movement to power. It's nothing new and suggesting that it's a modern political tool is laughable.

As for Opera being culturally more beneficial? That's just an inane statement, the vast majority of people wouldn't attend opera if you paid them to watch it.

Corrie gets put back 3 times a season and the world is coming to an end, now that's just too bad.

Did anyone suggest that using sport as a political tool is modern Dadaz? I didn't see that. I also didn't see anyone arguing that opera is culturally more beneficial. And yes, you're quite right, the majority of people wouldn't attend opera if you paid them to watch it, but they're happy to vote for the X factor, so the X factor is obviously much better than Verdi.

Why should Corrie get put back 3 times a season? Why is your assumption that this is right and proper?

Corrie is on telly how many times a week....?

Class the repeats and omnibloodybus editions with that too.

The slot for a program to be shown isn't owned by that program, and what is deemed to be our national sport can supercede it at times. Obviously the boffins in charge of advertising think there is more push to the book covering champions league.

Football has working class roots and most of high earning footballers have working class roots. This thread has made an assumption that football has relieved men of political interest, I dispute that completely.

The killing of the unions by Thatcher did that, and I don't believe she was an avid football fan.

"I've been wondering - if women ruled the world, would football quietly go away?"

In answer to the OP, yes and no.

Would it die out as a sport? No, as others have said, the popularity of football predates modern media - England v Scotland games used to get attendances of 150,000+ in the 1930s and you used to get attendance of 200,000+ in Brazil in the 1940s. Even today (just ahem checking FIFA's site) about a quarter of a billion people from 200 countries around the world play football regularly. There are plenty of practical reasons why it is so popular, including low cost, limited equipment requirements, ability to play virtually anywhere, being part of a team etc - if anyone fancies reading it, there's a great book called "Brazil: A History of Football" which shows how football takes off in new countries.

Would it die out in terms of wealth and media coverage? Possibly. Ultimately, the wealth in the game is driven by the value of the media and commercial rights, which in turn are reliant on a large and/ or loyal audience. If it's large enough, there'll be enough advertising dollars to justify free to air television coverage and newspaper column inches. If it's loyal enough, there'll be enough to justify paid subscription models (a la Sky). Football currently has both so makes a lot of money, which is channelled into the game, and to the players. If there were fewer media consumers of football (which presumably there would be if there were women) then there would be a reduction in money flowing into the game... um, presuming of course the point of the OP being that men are forbidden from watching football.

Oh just as an aside as to why women's sports are discriminated against, that absolutely is not the case in my experience.

When you're screening sports, there are broadly two types of sports you look to.

Firstly, premium sports like football, motorsports, some golf, some cricket and some rugby union (in this country) - although the rights to these are expensive these attract large and loyal audiences that you can make money out of in some way (via advertising or subscription).

Secondly, in-fill sports like snooker, athletics, darts and second tier golf and cricket. These might not attract large audiences but they have lots of TV hours coverage at a very low cost of production and rights acquisition. Think about how many hours you get out of a snooker tournament vs. football matches.

Certain broadcasters I know have tried broadcasting the most popular women's sports, especially women's football but also women's rugby and to a lesser extent, and including the highest profile tournaments. Unfortunately the reality is that these sports have neither a large and loyal audience and don't give enough TV hours to make it worthwhile.

As an example, when Hope Powell led a brilliant England women's side to the final of 2009 European Championship, a thrilling game (which sadly we lost) was broadcast by the BBC, i.e. probably the best women's game available on a channel everyone can get. The audience for it was less than 1 million vs. say 1.5 million for decent athletic events, 4 million for Grand Prix and 10+ million for FA Cup football.

I dont' think Thatcher de-politicised young men.

Union membership was already in long term decline when she came along and of course there was a closed shop in many firms which meant that lots of members didn't actually want to be in that club.

I think a lot of people were de-politicised after the war with prosperity when it looked as though everything was going in a progressive direction and you didn't need to worry too much about things bar the odd nuclear weapon detonating by accident or a full scale soviet invasion.

Then the fall of the soviet union de-politicised a lot more people, as it looked as though there was only one way to orgainise society now. The only noisy opposition to that, is Islamic fundamentalism which is not attractive to most people.

Ironic to think that someone as colourless as Nick Clegg has managed to re-politicise the i-pod generation.

cestlavie - What about gymnastics? It seems like that would provide many hours.

I feel like it used to be on and reported about when I was a kid a lot more than it seems to be now.

Yes I remember watching loads of gymnastics when I was a kid.

Maybe I've got False Memory Syndrome.

Hello (OP here) sorry to post and run but I've got a lot on.

Lots of replies here to catch up on, I meant to contribute more, but stuff's got in the way.

I'll read through everyone's replies in a bit

(not much point to my post here, sorry!)

this article about women's football & the media is interesting:

www.thefword.org.uk/features/2007/10/did_you_watch_a