Mike Devlin on the Beautiful Game, Women's Football

Before we begin, however, let's put one thing front and centre first: yes, I said 'football' and not 'soccer'. This isn't some conspiracy against the Americans (you do know you only make up about 4% of the planet, yes?), because the word soccer is actually English English and not American English; association football is where the word comes from. And besides the ball is predominantly played using a foot, and not like the hand-egg thing Americans are so used to. 

However, with all that said, with the advent of the British Ladies' Football Club being formed in 1894, men very quickly did that shaking of heads and under-breath muttering because the beautiful game could not be ruined by beautiful women; how were women supposed to have dinner on time if they were on a pitch? Exactly. Case closed. 

Well, not quite. The Great War turned up and there was a sudden drop in available men to play the game for some reason, but as luck would have it women weren't doing anything important (other than looking after their families and working). And it was popular! I mean, really popular. 

Nope. Can't have that. And so it was in December of 1920 women's football was effectively banned, because that inconvenient war had stopped. Merry Christmas! There was, of course, a point to be made that it was too popular and that The FA (all countries have FAs, it's just that as the inventor of the game, the English FA were allowed to just be called that and not have a country prefix attached) were not making money from them. They denied this of course, but who wouldn't believe some white rich old men when they only had women's feelings at heart? Precisely. 

I did say 'effectively' though. Women's football continued because whilst men prevented them from doing anything officially through the proper avenues, they couldn't stop them from playing. One year after The FA ban the English Ladies' Football Association (there's that word again) was formed. Not only did they have domestic games but there was, in a manner of speaking, a World Cup in the late 30s (I think there was another Great War going on). 

But what of other countries outside England? Surely they would not stoop so low as to follow suit with rich white old guys? Yep, they did. And they all did so until 1970, a full 50 years later. But why 1970? Was there an uprising? Not exactly. 

In 1969 The English Women's FA was formed (yes, men) due to the 1966 World Cup being held in England, who won the competition (yes, it went over the line, Germans), the increased interest in the game, and other organisations professing an interest in bringing women back in. However, there was much to get back to how it was supposed to be. Enter stage-right Italy in the 70s, which actually started paying women. 1981 saw the first official national game in Indonesia, and it took until 1989 for the first semi-professional league to be created in Japan. Paid. And this was only thirty-six years ago! 

 

It wasn't until 1985 that the US formed their own national team (football was still considered foreign and weird by Americans back then, but, oddly, it was okay for women to play). Today women's football is played in front of packed stadiums (and World Cups sell literally millions of tickets), so we're all good now, yes? Comparity, everything is great, sorry for 50 years of ignoring you?

Umm ... no. 

You know that argument about equal pay between men and women? It does not hold a candle to football. In the professional game, most men earn in a week what a woman will earn in a year. That's 'most'. Go to the top of the game and the disparity is night and day.

I am not here, though, to argue that women should be on an equal footing with men in the game, although in some regards they are. What I am saying is that women were just as popular, if not more so, than men, but in the intervening period (yes, brought on by men), the game has suffered monumentally. 

There is still sexism: Sepp Blatter, once head of FIFA, said women should wear tight v-necks and tight shorts because of course, he did. Playing in a Hijab was only recently allowed, and wearing skirts was only acceptable once the men realised they were wearing those tight shorts Blatter wanted underneath. 

There is a lonnnnng way still to go, but it is getting there. There will always unfortunately be that element of sexism that exists, that women should know their place, and, yes, 'this is a man's game'. It took until 2008 for The FA to apologise for what they did in 1920. But to all those women who know how difficult it is to get a man to apologise, 80-odd years isn't bad going.

But to that I would suggest that women should kick those balls. And kick them real hard.