Covid and women's/girls' football

[JellySaurus]

I am deeply uninterested in football, but seem to recall something about female football having less access to grounds than male football during the pandemic. If this was the case, can anyone point me to some relevant articles?

I don't have access to the articles at the moment, but I can give you some of the problems:

• the Government suspended all but elite sports: the women's FA cup was suspended as it does not have elite status
• top level youth and development squads for women were barred from training and competing by the FA, while their male counterparts continued
• male international players have the money to have their own home gyms and so kept fit that way during lockdown: a women's Welsh international was stopped by police from using a public playing field.

Those are just the highlights.

Wow, I didn't know this. Like the OP I'm not into sport, so learning yesterday about the 1920 ban was an eye opener.

The problem is more general I think. At my DDs University the men's team had first dibs on training facilities, so the women had to accept less favourable times. Perhaps something about men's football being a major sport whilst the women's wasn't. Or simply because men tended to control that part of the SU.

It's just horrendous when you lay it all out

I'm not in to sport but I get very annoyed by these sorts of things and male reactions to women's sports in general ( family and friends) they just don't understand how much stands in the way of women competing on an equal footing in many sports

I'll add this here as well, as I want everyone to know - trans identifying people under 19 can choose which team they want to play for, girls, boys or mixed.

They can also choose which changing room and showers they prefer to use, and girls are not allowed to say no. The FA trans inclusion policy also allows coaches to self ID, the very same coaches who supervise girls in changing rooms and showers.

www.thefa.com/-/media/files/pdf/the-fa-2015-16/transpeople-in-football-guide.ashx?la=en

Look up the Dick Kerr Ladies: on Boxing Day 1920 they had 56,000 people watching their match, with thousands more outside. But WW1 was over and men wanted their spectators back, so in 1921 the ban arrived.

Winners of the men's Premier League collect £175 million: winners of the Women's Super League get £100,000.

Surprisingly, I also have zero interest in football: I'm just glad DD will be able to play if she wants to (and won't be told by her teacher that she can't play as football is for boys ).

We know this, respectmysex, it's an important issue and it's something we discuss on this board. But please don't derail this thread into a discussion on trans issues. I'm trying to find reputable sources to demonstrate to my teens that sexism is still active. They think that, because England women one a major football competition, and were very visible on screen and social media, that women have full equality in football.

That's along the lines of what I remember. But was it in newspapers etc? How did MN find out about it?

See sources here: www.historyextra.com/period/first-world-war/1921-when-football-association-banned-women-soccer-dick-kerr-ladies-lily-parr/

www.bbc.com/sport/football/59475956.amp

I think male coaches could get suspended from the FA if they coached women.

On Women's Hour just now a coach explained that his 150 - strong girls coaching recently had its training ground and times taken away from them. He didn't say why but I imagine it was for a more important (male) team. 😡

It's structural misogyny that runs so deep. We're so used to it that we don't go on and on about it, but we should. Glad that Radio 4 have been pointing it out loads lately (women being banned from 1920s to 1970s), but personally I think women's history of oppression, and historical ignoring of our achievements, should be part of the curriculum.

My DC are now in their 20s. When they were younger DS used to attend a residential camp run by Chelsea FC. (I was working FT so always looking for half term child care.) A couple of years later when his DS was old enough, she was keen to join him. The coach was apologetic. They had reviewed their safeguarding procedures and decided they did not have sufficient email staff to look after a group of girls in a residential environment.

Wow that's awful I don't follow football but did watch the women's match as my husband was watching it. How can the people in charge of these decisions justify this unfairness?

I was into a different sport to football as a child, competed at county level. When my coach moved away when I was early teens the other local club wouldn’t take girls. We tried looking further afield and every club we tried that would take girls the coaches were very ‘handsy’.

Being molested by your coach is not a purely female problem but when you don’t have many training clubs to chose from it reduces your choices still further.

All the girls I trained with gave up the sport at this stage as we couldn’t find anywhere to train.