England's women deserve respect and popularity

Women's Football / Dave Farrar / 01 October 2008 / Leave a Comment

The England women's team are being failed by the media as well as those at the top of the game but at the heart of the problem lie long out-dated misconceptions about what consitutes "ladylike" behaviour, says Dave Farrar.

On Thursday night, England will probably qualify for the European Football Championship. They need to avoid defeat in Spain to make it, and even defeat by one goal will be enough to make sure that they get there.

England are unbeaten in their qualifying group, and have scored 22 goals while conceding only two. It's not a great surprise that England have done this well, as they are fortunate enough to have one of the world's best players in their side, and they reached the quarter finals of the last World Cup. They'll go into the Euros expecting to reach the semi finals, and with an outside chance of winning.

As ever, the team which England will fear most will be the Germans. You've probably guessed by now that I'm talking about the England Women's Team. And yet I bet you didn't know that they were on the brink of achieving something so impressive. It would be hard for you to know, as you'd have to search hard for the information: BBC Radio Five Live won't be sending a reporter, despite having the excellent Jacqui Oatley at their service, and the newspapers will rely on the small group of journalists, the likes of Tony Leighton and Pete Lansley , who file match reports partly as a labour of love. The match will be live on Setanta, and I declare an interest here as I'll be working on it, but aside from the outlets I've mentioned, nobody seems to care.

I wonder why it is that so many people are dismissive of the Women's Game. More women play football in this country than any other sport, and yet, unlike in the USA, the best players in England have barely registered in the sports pages. Success has something to do with it, and the England team is yet to have its Brandi Chastain sportsbra moment, but qualifying for the Euros so convincingly is impressive.

Think of the column inches used up when England's men failed to get to Euro 2008, and the success argument becomes harder to justify. There's a perception that somehow it's not "real football", is not played at the pace of the Men's Game and is therefore not as interesting. If you take that opinion to its logical conclusion why on earth do we care about Women's Tennis? A female player who gets past the first round at Wimbledon gets more coverage than a football team which qualifies for a major championship. My guess is that it's all to do with a rather quaint perception of what being a woman should be about. Playing tennis all in white is perceived as elegant and, dare I say, ladylike, while running around a field in shorts should be left to the men.

It's not as if the idea of female sportspeople is something which disgusts us. Rebecca Adlington is trading at [2.5] to be this year's BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and three of the last six winners of that award have been women. And yet I doubt that if England pull off a shock next summer, Kelly Smith will even merit a place in the top ten of the voting.

The blame doesn't solely rest with our subtle sexism on this issue, or with the media. Women's Football hasn't helped itself: I don't think enough people within the game realise that they need to work harder than men to gain popularity and indeed respect. There are individuals who will complain about not getting publicity and in the same breath moan about wanting to concentrate on their game and refuse to do any peripheral stuff. Lennart Johansson of UEFA was mocked when he said after Euro 2005 that women should present themselves better for post game interviews, but he was right. He made his point in horrible, clumsy language, but if Cristiano Ronaldo is a sex symbol because of the way that he looks, and dresses, why shouldn't Womens Football have its equivalent? In this case, any publicity has to be good publicity, particularly given the Hollywood nature of modern sport.

I'm not going to point you in the direction of Thursday night's game, and encourage you to watch, as that would be to mercilessly plug an event that I'm working on, but at some point before the next European Championships, give Womens football a go. Go and watch Arsenal on a Sunday, or catch one of the many high quality teams around the country. Put your prejudices to one side, and help the fastest growing female sport in the country help itself.