The media has failed women’s football

Football is supposedly a national obsession. But, from the media’s coverage of the women’s World Cup, it seems we are only interested when the players are men. Carrie Dunn reports

Did you watch any of the women’s World Cup? Chances are, if you’re in the UK, you didn’t. The England games attracted a mid-afternoon audience of around 1.8 million on BBC2, which is respectable for the time-slot, but hardly earth-shattering. Nor is it an ideal position in the schedules for a profile-raising campaign.

You probably won’t have read much about it in the papers either. A paragraph previewing the game against Germany, maybe? A few lines after Hope Powell’s girls got knocked out of the tournament? Unless you actively sought it out - and it would have taken a lot of action - it’s unlikely you’ll even have seen the scandalous scenes when England’s Kelly Smith took off her boots after scoring. Imagine!

Women who want to kick a ball around put up with the inevitable taunts of “dyke” and oh-so-funny jokes about “chesting the ball” and “swapping shirts at the end”, while their greatest triumphs will be compared with men’s - and derided regardless

The BBC posted a blog piece after the opening game of the tournament about how poor the standard of women’s goalkeeping is. The Guardian ran an article after the final, ostensibly to praise the silky skills of Brazil’s Marta Vieira da Silva - known simply as Marta, but its direct comparisons between men and women just provided a space for opponents of women’s football to voice their views. Again.

It gets tiresome repeatedly wheeling out the same defences of the women’s game - amateurism, lack of funding, the fact that women were officially banned from playing football across the world until very recently - but some of these points need reinforcing, as the nay-sayers carp on about how very embarrassingly bad the standard is.

However, when it emerged that six out of 10 Britons would not be motivated to exercise even if their lives depended on it,
I couldn’t help but think that it’s hardly surprising that women don’t participate more when the entire culture of sport is so very male-oriented. Women who want to kick a ball around will have to fork out for kit and meet a fair proportion of their expenses even if they reach the highest level; they’ll have to put up with the inevitable taunts of “dyke” and oh-so-funny jokes about “chesting the ball” and “swapping shirts at the end”; and their greatest triumphs will be compared with men’s - and derided regardless.

Media coverage would attract more fans and more sponsorship, which would mean more money all round.


It’s not just a British thing, though. You’d think Brazilians, with their footballing tradition, would be proud to declare the brilliant Marta a daughter of their country. Except they’re not. Her biographer couldn’t find a publisher and Marta plays professionally in Sweden, not her home country.

I’m pretty sure that none of the international footballers care all that much about what is written about them, but if the women’s game got a fairer crack of the whip, the media coverage would attract more fans and more sponsorship, which would mean more money all round. Investment in facilities and training would raise the ability levels and make for a more entertaining and competitive spectacle. And wouldn’t that be best for everyone - particularly if the critics do genuinely wish to watch a high-class battle between two teams of supreme athletes?

Of course, there’s always the possibility that some people just don’t think women belong in the world of association football, whether it’s males or females on the pitch. But that’s another debate entirely.

Photo of Marta from Kickster

About the author
Carrie Dunn is a freelance journalist and editor of Kickster, your one-stop shop for anything and everything to do with women’s football and women in football. She is currently completing a PhD in female sports fandom

Katherine Legge Champ Car Driver

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
· First female driver to run full-time in Champ Car World Series
· Scored victory in first Atlantic race, Long Beach, 2005
· First female driver to win a major open-wheel race in United States
· Third in 2005 Champ Car Atlantic Championship standings


2005
Katherine made history on a number of levels in 2005, becoming the first female driver to win a major U.S. open-wheel event when she scored victory in her very first event, coming from seventh on the grid to win in Long Beach. Earned consecutive victories in Edmonton and San Jose, sparking her to a third-place finish in the championship. Scored eight top-fives in 12 races and earned the bonus point for gaining most positions in a series-high three events. Qualified in the top-six in each of the last eight races of the year. Tested a Champ Car, Formula 1 car and an A1GP car in the offseason before signing with PKV Racing.

2004
Competed in British and North American Formula Renault events, earning three top-seven results in the U.S.-based series. Best finish of fifth at Trois-Rivieres. Got first look at Champ Car World Series when she placed seventh at Toronto during a support race for the Molson Indy Toronto. Won the Kathryn Nunn Infiniti Pro Series Scholarship after besting four other drivers in a shootout-style test session.

2003
Ran a partial season in the British Formula 3 Championship competing against recent Champ Car drivers Will Power and Ronnie Bremer.

2002
Ran a partial season in the British Formula Renault Championship. Won the pole and set a lap record at Oulton Park but was caught in an accident that retired here from the race. Became the first female to receive the prestigious British Racing Drivers Club (BRDC) Rising Star Award.

2001
Competed in the four-race British Formula Renault Winter Series.

2000
Raced in the British Formula Ford Zetec Championship, becoming the first female driver to win a pole in that series

Early career
Competed in numerous karting series, winning the 1996 Scottish Open Championship

Personal
Enjoys mountain biking, swimming and skiing.

Broadcasters strike gold in final coverage (FIFA.com) Monday 1 October 2007

Broadcasters strike gold in final coverage (FIFA.com) Monday 1 October 2007

It was not just defending champions Germany that struck gold on Sunday. The TV broadcasters for the two finalists of the FIFA Women's World Cup China 2007, ZDF in Germany and Rede Bandeirantes in Brazil, set new records in spite of unfavourable time differences.

Rede Bandeirantes reached the extraordinary rating of around 15 points, three times above the average of an entire Sunday and way beyond the channel's expectations.

Germany's national channel ZDF achieved an audience of 9.05 million viewers representing a market share of 50.5 per cent. The broadcast rights holder, who shared the event broadcast over the three weeks with ARD, was delighted with these results which beat the highest UEFA Champions League audience from the 2005/06 season (8.1 million viewers for the live primetime coverage of the Milan - Bayern Munich tie).

Moreover, the live coverage of the Japanese Formula 1 Grand Prix, also held on Sunday, attracted 2.2 million viewers. To put this in context, the highest Formula 1 audience of the year so far in Germany was recorded at 7.95 million for the live showing of the European GP which was held at the same time on a Sunday as the coverage for the FIFA Women's World Cup final.

"These magnificent results, which reflect the outstanding attendances in the stadiums during the entire competition and the ever increasing number of women players around the world, bear witness to the brilliant improvement of women's football on a universal scale. It is an extra source of encouragement to everyone who is following FIFA's example and firmly believes in the future of women's football," commented FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter.

In 2003, the final of the fourth FIFA World Cup between Germany - Sweden reached in the German TV a live audience of 11.38 million, however this match was shown during prime evening viewing hours and therefore achieved a lower market share than the broadcast on Sunday 30 September on a Sunday morning (33.8 per cent v 50.5 per cent). This first very promising results just confirms the high expectations with a record number of 200 territories who have covered the 2007 edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup.

Stats

Since its conception in 1989, the Women's World Cup has continued to grow in popularity. FIFA estimates that there are currently forty million girls and women playing football around the world.

Numerous TV stations across the world provide coverage of the tournament. One notable example is the Chinese-language channel CCTV-5 which is available as a free internet feed through TVUnetworks.

Monetary rewards ($)

Champions: 1,000,000
Runners-up: 800,000
Third place: 650,000
Fourth place: 550,000
Quarter-finalists: 300,000
First round exit: 200,000

Should women be allowed to play men?

forum on the topic of men v's women

Internationnal Calendar

FIFA comes up with all kinds of excuses, that there's an international calendar it must consider and that September brings better weather to China, but the reality is China will host the Olympic Games next August, and at least could have done the same with the World Cup this year. That would have ensured a much greater summertime audience before men's sports heated up again.

Competing for space in the newspaper and air time on TV this month is not just an issue for women's soccer. It's also a concern for the WNBA finals.

Coverage

CBC is heading to China! As the exclusive Canadian broadcaster of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, CBC will provide wall-to-wall soccer action, with a 12-game schedule of the prestigious 16-team tournament. After an incredible summer of soccer, including the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Canada, World Cup fever continues to build on CBC.

In addition, Canadians will be able to watch games when and where they want to, as all 32 games from the FIFA Women’s World Cup will be available online on cbcsports.ca, all free and on-demand. Comprehensive online coverage will also include special feature stories, athlete and team profiles, games, analysis, game summaries and comprehensive news and results.

Women's World Cup Compared to Men's

The event consists of 16 teams battling for the top women’s international football title during 32 matches, across stadiums in five Chinese cities: Chengdu, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Tianjin and Wuhan. China automatically qualifies as host of the event, with Norway, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, England, Australia, Korea DPR also through to the finals. Further qualification rounds are taking place throughout 2006 and into 2007 to decide on the final 16 participating teams.

The final event will consist of 64 matches. The international signal will be produced by Host Broadcast Services (HBS) to the highest technical standards. HBS was also the host broadcaster for the 2002 World Cup Korea/Japan™ and 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™.

Women's Football in England

Association football is the unofficial national sport of England. While women's football has been played in England for over a century, it has only been in the 1990s that the game has seen a large increase in female players, as well as in female spectators, culminating in England hosting the Women's European Championships in 2005.


In the period from early in the First World War until the Football Association's ban on women playing football on the grounds of its affiliates in 1922 (which lasted for 40 years) women's football was very popular and a true rival to the men's game. One match featuring the Dick, Kerr's Ladies team from Preston, played at Goodison Park, Liverpool on Boxing Day 1920, attracted a crowd of 53,000 with another 10,000 - 15,000 reported turned away because the ground was full.

Today, the FA runs directly the top women's competitions. The most significant national competition is the national cup, the FA Women's Cup, followed by the top national league, the Women's Premiership. The Premiership has recently increased in importance because its winner is the only English representative allowed in Europe. Women's football also has its own Premier League Cup, limited to the teams in the Premiership and the regional second divisions. To promote women's football, the FA allows cup finals to be held at various men's Premiership/Football League stadia throughout the country (as opposed to men's finals which are usually held at the national stadiums); for the 2006-07 season, the League Cup final took place at Scunthorpe United's Glanford Park, and the FA Cup final will take place at Nottingham Forest's City Ground.