New rules for women's football?

[TiggyD]

(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.

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.

The women are about as successful as the men. They sometimes show promise only to disappoint at the last minute.

Smaller pitches would make sharing with men tricky.

It's not just the physical aspect that suffers with amateur players. There's less chance to practise skills and tactics. They also have proper jobs to worry about.

I don't think any of that will do much good, tbh. Women can train just as hard as men, and I'm sure that their technical skills will match men's, but the basic physiological fact is that the average female player will never be able to run as fast, or kick as hard, or jump as high as the average male player.

Having recently watched a top flight Ladies game, I have to contest your claim about fitness - it was a non stop game for the full 90mins. I know there were a lot of internationals on show, but even so, I was so impressed by the quality of the game.
Would it not be an all round better idea to work on the TV companies to show more games, leading to better income from advertisers, leading to more money in the game, leading to the top players being able to go professional ?

But male football player are paid for playing and training

Womens often have to have paid employent, then play and train

Oh no. Please don't lets go making the game easier for the little ladies in case they run out of puff. Let's concentrate on the game raising support and funding so that they can go fully professional and train properly and put in the gym work and running instead of fitting it in between finishing work and getting their supper.

Having watched the women's FA cup final this year (extra time plus penalties) I'm inclined to agree with backforgood .and hothead. At the top levels I don't think the issue is fitness - it's more to do with advertising and revenue (as is everything these days - yawn). Something needs to change to make the game marketable in the eyes of the money-bods, sadly it will probably involve 'sexing' the game up. Boak. But then there is also an element of that in the men's game - Becks etc.

Must say though, I do prefer watching the women's game so really hope it can get some telly space asap.

Yes, the way this analogy with tennis is let down is we're not comparing male and female amateur players with each other. Serena Williams isn't doing a shift in Tesco before she gets started on her training. (Would anyone watch male amateur footie on TV?) Personally I think sponsoring a few teams to train professionally would be a good thing for many reasons, not least remove some of the negative comparisons about the men's and women's games.

I don't think the 'can't run as fast' argument really holds water. (I accept women in general can't run as fast as men, although I believe in some long distance categories this is beginning to change?) There are very few sports in which women and men compete equally, except as mixed teams. Women's sports can still be highly competitive and require a great degree of physical and tactical skill. Not wishing to drag up the whole tennis player/prize money thing again but shouldn't women's football be judged on its own merit, as opposed to regarded as 'not as good as men's football'? The league below the Premier one (you can see I am something of an expert here) isn't as good as the Premier league but it's still (apparently) worth a gazillion quid. Couldn't we eliminate the lowest rank of men's football and fund a women's league with that?

The FA and some clubs are supporting the newly formed partly professional Women's Super League, the games just don't attract a crowd therefore little revenue so long term it's unlikely to be able to fund it's self.

On the femminism bit? Really?

No give women the opportunity to train full time, have the best sports scientists / psychologists / physios etc.

"Not wishing to drag up the whole tennis player/prize money thing again but shouldn't women's football be judged on its own merit, as opposed to regarded as 'not as good as men's football'?"
My point is that it would be easier to judge on it's own merit if it were a (slightly) different game.

But there's a bit of a 'chicken and egg' situation there though isn't there Akermanis - people never see them on the tele, so they don't know much about them, so they aren't talked about at work / school on a Monday, so they don't get so many people going to see them.
All sorts of children who live nowhere near Manchester or London support Manchester Utd and Arsenal or Chelsea, because they get all the publicity, so little kids see them and are aware of them, so become fans, and so the circle goes round.

I thought football pitches weren't a standard size anyway? did I dream that?

Re the stamina thing, I though stamina was where the difference between men and women disappeared. Isn't there a woman iron'man' champ?

The dominant sports have of course been designed to show male skill so I agree with sentiment. But in this society it would be judged as being 'second rate' if anything was designed for women's skills.

I've recently come to the conclusion that sport is just a way for to men to make up for not being able to give birth. All these increasingly complex displays of physical ability, when compared with giving birth are shorter, require less endurance and are ultimately pointless.

And there was me thinking that I trained to increase my skill levels, stamina and all-round fitness, when all I really wanted to do was the equivalent of crap out a bowling ball for nine hours.

How can you honestly watch someone like Roger Federer, Jessica Ennis, Lionel Messi or Becky Addlington and not admire their ability? Pointless??

I can admire their ability, but yes it is ultimately pointless. As is much of what we do in life. Sport isn't the exception.

Seeing giving birth as like crapping out a bowling ball for 9 hours is revealing in itself. Why would you deride something that is obviously very purposeful, essential and requires a huge amount of stamina and endurance? Yet balk at sport being pointless.

Ooh, I have revealed myself! Having been present at two births (go me!) I know a bit about what is involved. My point, as doubtless you already know, is that the pain is not something that I envy, although I am full of love and admiration for my wife. She, by the way, laughs out loud when she hears women use giving birth as a stick to beat men over the head with. She reckons running her first marathon was harder.

'.......ultimately pointless. As is much of what we do in life' - well, quite. Sharing a joke with my kids, or going for a bike ride, or going on holiday, or just sat here typing guff - all ultimately pointless. All can be fun though. Still, I think this statement is also quite revealing!

No I don't already know your point. Nor do I use giving birth as a stick to beat men with. there was somewhat more to my analogy than that.

There's nothing wrong with doing things that are ultimately pointless. I don't see the controversy in saying that sport is ultimately pointless, along with much of what we do in life. I do think that the categorisation of pointless/ non pointless relates to a discussion of women in sport.

At a basic (amateur) level, sport can increase our fitness, which can increase our resistance to disease and illness, which can lead to a longer and healthier (and hopefully happier) life. This can in turn reduce burden on healthcare services, allowing services to be directed towards those who really need them. I see these as two valid points. I could be wrong.

Back to your original point -'I've recently come to the conclusion that sport is just a way for to men to make up for not being able to give birth.' I am interested to know what lead you to this conclusion.

Physical activity can indeed help with health. I wouldn't conflate sport with physical activity though. There's an intersection at points for sure, but they're not the same thing.

What led me to that conclusion? Experience, pondering, analysis, reflection. I imagine I will have been thinking about sport and pregnancy/childbirth at the same time and saw some parallels. Discussions with others, who also saw parallels. The usual really.

In fact I recall the trigger, my partner and I were watching some guy on the One Show doing some ever more ridiculous 'sporting challenge' (this is something me and my husband often discuss in a different context) and I was struggling to eat my tea due to appalling sickness. Set me thinking. As things do.

Okay, thanks for that. I didn't know whether this was just a personal opinion, or if sport was another patriarchal construct on the rad fem hit-list. And your point about physical activity and sport not necessarily being the same thing is something I missed when I read your first post. It's a fair point.

Back to the OP - I think changing the parameters for women's football would do the women's game more harm than good. If you go to your local park on a week-end, you will see plenty of unfit blokes struggling to get around the pitch, but they wouldn't want a smaller pitch than the pros. There is already provision for younger kids to play on smaller pitches, but they change up to a full-size pitch around 11 years of age, which is ridiculous, as it leads to the problems we see in the current England men's team - big kids who can lump or head a ball miles are chosen ahead of those smaller, more skilful players who are less physical in their approach.

Why are there not many female snooker or darts players?
Probably because they are games generally played in pubs. Women tend not to go to pubs in the same way as men do and play.

Women don't need different pitches or rules. Until they were effectively banned by the FA in the early 1920s they played on par with men and the reason for the ban is that the women's games were getting more popular than the men's games.

news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/women/4603149.stm