The uproar over Luis Rubiales’s behaviour laid bare the female players’ longstanding fight for equality; a battle that took a fresh twist this week after 15 players from the World Cup-winning squad were called-up despite their decision to boycott the national team until changes are made to the federation leadership.
All societal issues aside, it’s hard for me to subscribe to the general idea that women’s football is “silenced” or “marginalized” in any meaningful way. On the contrary, it’s propped up by clubs and federations. As a professional sport, it’s hardly sustainable in most places that are not the US.
In the Spanish women’s league’s last season, the median attendance was 922 people per game [1]. And this was in a “hype season” with a World Cup and accordingly strong sponsor engagement. It wouldn’t surprise me if we saw the numbers decline to the standards of the season before, with a median attendance of 532 [2].
It wouldn’t surprise me if we see the numbers increase to standards never seen before with a median attendance in the 5-digits given the women’s football popularity and growing media attraction in recent years.
That logic is so laughable on its face. A couple charity matches drew a sizeable audience and raised money, so the butthurt FA decided to ban women games from being played on FA affiliated grounds …
Aside from this fantastic 53,000 people number only appearing in a player’s diary, the author couldn’t provide any evidence that the ban was due to the attention womens’ games were getting. Because there is no such evidence.
Of course, women’s football might possibly be bigger today if not for the bans, but going forth with unsubstantiated articles like that certainly doesn’t help.
What have I been making up? Perhaps read your own sources more critically.
It’s an illusion that the ban was motivated by jealousy. The only piece of evidence the article supplies is this:
“When I spoke to Alice Norris [one of the Dick, Kerr players of the time] and some of the other ladies they all said they thought the FA was just jealous because they were getting bigger crowds,”
Oral accounts of subjective judgments of affected players.
If there is better evidence, it’s not in the article. Feel free to provide it.
So, you’re assuming that article is the sole bit of history available? And also, feel confident to dismiss it despite the fact that you have never read any of the history you assume does not exist?
Still not a shred of evidence that the FA banned women’s football due to jealousy. Good on that fan-site for keeping their memory alive but they don’t even cite sources so …
But still, you’re arguing the toss over the FA’s motivations now, so you’ve accepted that you were originally talking out of your arse, and continued to talk out of your arse, for some unfathomably fragile reason.
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