#IWD Levelling The Playing Field
Contrary to popular belief, and despite what you may have heard in the playground, down the pub or in a crowded, male-dominated stadium, football is NOT a man’s game. And today, being International Women’s Day, seems the right time to declare it, share it and call for women’s football (or soccer, if you’d prefer) to be elevated to the same heights as the men’s game. Or, perhaps, for the male version to step back in line.
In England, women began forming football teams around the same time as men, towards the end of the 19th century, with their games often attracting large attendances. When the men went off fighting during the First World War, the women of Britain, now working in farms and factories, continued to play, partly for their own enjoyment but also for the entertainment of others. Such was the popularity of the women’s game that it continued to draw large crowds even after the war had ended. One infamous game between the now legendary Dick Kerr’s Ladies and St Helens Ladies on Boxing Day 1920 saw a crowd 53,000 turn up at Everton’s Goodison Park Stadium, with many thousands more turned away.
Being the 1920s, there were a lot of men who believed that the only kit they wanted to see their women in was the one that ended in chen, that they should be running around after the kids and not chasing after a ball; the idea that women’s football could be as popular or — heaven forbid — more successful than the men’s game was just too much to bear. A meeting was called by footballing authorities who took just fifteen minutes (barely enough time to pass round the pipe tobacco and discuss their favoured moustache wax, if you ask me) to declare that “the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged”, banning women from playing football on all affiliated pitches.
And there it was, suddenly (and unbelievably) football became a man’s game and for future generations of boys, not seeing girls play, it remained that way for decades to follow.
The ban stayed in place until 1971, but the repercussions live on today. After not being able to play football for fifty years, it took many years for women to start getting more involved and it wasn’t until the close of the 20th Century and into the next one that women’s football started to be noticed.
It wasn’t just in the UK that football was held back by the patriarchy however: misogyny, prejudice, politics and religion meant that women’s football was playing second fiddle to the men’s game all over the world. In the USA, soccer, which was traditionally always more popular among females, went largely ignored until the men’s game took off and the dollars started flying. In Brazil it was a federal offence for women to play football and in several Islamic states female football was, probably not surprisingly, outlawed.
Society had got used to only men playing football and, for many, it was difficult to accept the idea that women could enjoy playing the game too. For those ignorant of the facts, it looked like women just wanted a piece of the multi-million pound industry that the game had become and so, as women’s football took off, bigotry and history ensured that it was on a very uneven playing field.
In 2017, in the small town of Lewes, the county town of East Sussex in the south of England, the directors of the local football team decided that their men’s and women’s teams would be treated on an equal basis: everything the men got the women would get too, from salaries to training, playing conditions to promotion. Incredibly, four years on, Lewes FC remain the only club in the world to make such a promise but see it paying dividends with attendances at their women’s fixtures up, and a greater connection for the team within the local community.
In the 2018/19 season, Everton FC decided to use their women’s team to launch their second kit. Again, it paid off and since, Everton have invested further by being the only club to build a stadium and purpose-built training facilities specifically for their women’s team. In the same year, Manchester City decided that, rather than use separate social media accounts for their men’s and women’s teams, they would use just one making the women feel as much associated with the club as the men. City set a cheap and easy example of greater equality, but a quick check confirms that they remain the only English Premier League (EPL) team to do it. The others, in not doing so, seem to be pandering to the sexist and misogynistic elements of their fan base.
In France, the owner/president of Olympique Lyonnais, Jean-Michel Aulas, has invested more in women’s football than anyone else, allowing the players in the women’s team the opportunity to have their say on the kits they wear as well as paying salaries that, even though lower than male players get, are still among the highest in the world for women’s football. They too share the same social media platforms.
For all these moves in the right direction, the inequality between the players in the EPL and the Women’s Super League (FAWSL) is all too evident: female players often walking or cycling to training as opposed to driving (or being driven) in the latest shiny new Range Rover or sports car; players in the top flight women’s leagues often having to maintain a second job or side hustle in order to top up their wages; women’s league matches being postponed due to weather conditions on the pitches they play on while those used by the men’s teams are heated and treated and sit unused most of the time; and TV coverage of matches often hidden away on internet channels.
At international level, things improve slightly with England, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and Norway among those countries paying their men’s and women’s teams the same; the women’s team in the USA had to sue to achieve this parity.
Personally, I find it extraordinary that more clubs aren’t following the leads set by Olympique Lyonnais, Everton, Manchester City and especially Lewes FC. The woman’s game is more inclusive, more sporting and played with a better attitude than the multi-million pound industry that the man’s game has become. It should no longer be accepting crumbs from the men’s table but sharing the meal. As Karen Dobres, director at Lewes FC said in an interview in 2020, “How ridiculous to have a company with two products and put all your resources behind the mature one while ignoring the one with all the potential.”
No more misogyny or prejudice, no more sexist jokes: women’s football deserves a level playing field. And it should be getting it now.
