Women’s Football and The 2019 World Cup

The world’s best footballers and teams are in France to play in the World Cup. The best female ones, that is. The eighth edition of the Women’s World Cup is currently underway and this year there seems to be more fanfare, support, and viewership. The stadiums might not be sold out but there’s definitely more audience than in the previous tournaments.

Unfortunately, with the advent of social media, there also seem to be more people who are trolling women’s football. With football federations, both country and international, still not taking women’s football seriously, the battle, both on and off the pitch, still remains upward for women footballers.

But you can’t win against internet trolls. But what one can do is understand the obstacles women footballers have to face, the restrictions put on them for years and how determined women footballers are ensuring you take them seriously.

Women’s football is just coming off a great year. In December 2018, the first female Ballon D’or, the most coveted individual award in football, was awarded. Women’s league matches in Italy and Spain saw record audiences and Barcelona youth football for the first time entered their Under-12 and Under-14 girls teams in the local boys league – the U-12 girl’s team ended up winning their league.

This year, women footballers also made headlines, demanding to be taken seriously.

The United States National Womens Team (USWNT), the most successful team in women’s football history, filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against their country’s football federation. The USWNT has been in conflict with the country’s football federation over its treatment of the women’s team ranging from wages, playing conditions to medical treatment. The USWNT is much more successful both on and off the pitch when compared to their male counterparts.

The 2015 Women’s World Cup final which USA won was the highest watched football match EVER in the United States. The USWNT have won 3 World Cups and four Olympic gold medals and boast some of the most recognisable names in football such as Mia Hamm, Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd and Megan Rapinoe. Not only are these women unstoppable on the pitch they’re considered icons off it.

Another woman making headlines and demanding to be taken is the world’s best female footballer Ada Hegerberg. Hegerberg who was awarded the inaugral female Ballon D’or in December hails from Norway. She plays for Olympique Lyonnais, has scored 130 goals for them, won 4 Champions League titles and, she’s only 23.

Hegerberg also refuses to play for her national team since 2017 as part of a protest against the football federation in her country and the way it treats women’s football. Even racism in football also effects not only internally but externally to the fans. Hegerberg cites unhappiness with training methods, lack of open channel for players to express criticism and unhappiness with overall levels of support for the team as reasons for her boycott. Let that sink in – the current greatest female footballer in the world is not playing in the World Cup because she rightly feels she deserves better.

While some have been quick to criticise her choice of protest at the end of the day asking her to prove her worthiness with her feet, one must ask the question – who decides what the best way to protest is? Hegerberg is giving up the chance to play in the World Cup, a tournament all players dream of, because she believes standing up for what is right comes first. An almost Colin Kaepernick type protest – a man who sacrificed his NFL career by continuing to kneel during the US national anthem.

During the men’s World Cup last summer we had the fairytale teams of Croatia and Japan who were beating odds and big teams to fight for their spots – it seems like most teams in the women’s world cup are those fairytale teams. Most squads have had to fight against blatant disregard for women’s football in their country just to reach where they are.

Women have to fight to just play the sport they love, they then have to fight their federations to provide them the facilities to play. The England Football Association banned women in England were banned from playing football at the grounds of FA clubs for FIFTY YEARS. It was only in 1971 were grounds allowed to host women’s games again.

It is easy for trolls on Twitter to whine about how women “just don’t play as well as men” (link them to the U-12s Barcelona team beating all the boys in their league). It is harder for them to understand the nuances that led to that. How women are not encouraged to play, how they were banned from playing, how it is not financially viable for many of them to be professional players, how they’re not even given equipment to play, how sexual harassment is also rampant in women’s football and how some just don’t think women’s football is important enough to invest in (Real Madrid, a powerhouse men’s football club, still does not have a women’s team).

Female players are pushing hard to be taken seriously and to be treated with the same respect their male counterparts, whether they win or lose. It is time for the viewers and football federations to give it to them.