Saying FIFA only did bad things to women 50 years ago is, um, charitable. Discovery would quite likely bring up a slew of yucky things.
is there some reason the FIFA has to govern men's and women's soccer? Couldn't the women have their own governing body? If it's not some sort of world law then I think that threat is there. Ask for too much and we'll allow you to have it all. You'll just have to do all of the work.
Technically possible. Market wise FIFA wouldn't tolerate any form of football out of their control. Witness their continuous issues with futsal. That said, why shouldn't FIFA work hard to expand WoSo? It's a large potential market.
You said that England, Brazil, and others didn't allow women to play until the 70s, whatever that means exactly, so I used it as an example to illustrate why these arguments are not so cut and dry. I never said that was the only bad thing FIFA had done. Perhaps they've done more, I don't know what it was like in the 1930s. In fact, thinking about it more, FIFA probably followed the orthodoxy of the time, with an eye towards profit at all times. Individual member States not letting women play? Not FIFA's problem, there's no money in it. Today, some Arab countries don't even let women go to games, let alone play. There's no money in it, FIFA doesn't fuss too much about it.
Imagine if that had been FIFA's attitude towards the US and Asian markets late last century! Markets need to be developed. You increase the prize money to pump funds in to the international WoSo world. More money means more players dedicated to the craft which means more competition in more places which generates more interest. The WWC then develops in to an important event that would be similar but unlikely to be equivalent to the MWC. What's the interest in WoSo right now? Much less than 10% of the men's market? In comparison tennis is at something like 60%? Seems to me that there is an underserved market. Look, it's an easy push. Make WoSo prize money about 50% of men's. There would be a lot of feds suddenly pushing for excellence in their women's team.
US Soccer Chief Legal Counsel out: https://www.yahoo.com/sports/us-soc...-misogynistic-equal-pay-filing-153117508.html
I don't think any of that money is going to trickle down. There are no viable professional women's soccer leagues, not to mention there are only a handful of leagues in the world, all of them attached to their male counterparts a la the NBA/WNBA. The reason that there's only a handful of big fish in the WNT pond is the fact that there are so few semi-pro/professional leagues of any quality. In the USA, we have so many collegiate programs, we can pump out world-class women's soccer players with or without the NWSL, Division 1 Femenine, W-League, or Frauen Bundesliga*. * As an aside, the Frauen Bundesliga is older than MLS, having been continuously operating since 1990. That's crazy. Also an indictment that they can't outdraw any of the iterations of American leagues. You will not grow the profession of soccer for women/girls by paying the top players more money. You will grow the game if you support pro leagues around the world that can demonstrate a pathway for female professional soccer players. That's a way more expensive, difficult problem that takes decades to solve.
That's unimaginable, given the sheer size of those markets. FIFA was going to eventually have big interest in them. Agreed. And that's what's happening now, but too slowly. Women's tennis has all these subplots and that adds a kind of soap opera interest to the fanbase. Gender stuff, beauty standards stuff... People are going to buy into that whether they are experts n the game or not. People wanting Serena to win or lose because each side thinks the other is supporting the opponent for social reasons, etc. Not as much so with the men. All that plays into it. Plus, women have been playing top-flight tennis against each other since long before those tournaments paid out prize money. Yuge head start. And women's tennis has its own governing body with sponsors who weren't afraid to use equality-based imagery in their marketing ("You've come a long way, baby" from Virginia Slims is an example). I'd like to see the women fight to separate from FIFA myself. It'd be a rough start, but they'd at least be in control of their own destiny. Agreed. But I think FIFA loves money more than they love keeping women down (if that's what's being alleged), and someone who works for them gets paid more than I earn to determine if it's worth their trouble, or worth their trouble right now. You're not dealing so much with an opponent in ideology, but one whose main goal is to make cash.
can you help me out because I unplugged it and plugged it back in and my infinite loop isn’t working.
Women's Serie A continuously since 1968. Division 1 Féminine in France was formed in 1918 but went on hiatus between 1930 and 1975 after women's soccer was banned.
Wow, that's a long time to have leagues with such little comparative support. I'm surprised at the French ban on female soccer, but I suppose it's one of those things. Even countries like Brazil are infamously hostile to Women's soccer despite famously fanatic support of the sport. Makes the WNT even more of an outlier. Soccer has been in an uphill battle for most of US history, yet our WNT is the most well-supported and funded WNT in the world by a country mile.
Winning definitely helps. England haven't won anything but Tottenham Ladies averaged over 8.5k last season, so there is progress.
let’s not pick on Brasil. England’s FA banned women’s football in 1921 after the famous Dick Kerr’s ladies drew 53,000 at a match, outdrawing the best attendance of most F A men’s sides. the ban held for 50 years, far longer than Brasil’s ban until FIFA told them in 1971 they couldn’t enter FIFA competitions unless they included women’s sides in the FA.
What about it? I see no reason to put on kiddie gloves for Brazil or any other soccer-mad country of similar stature. Argentina's WNT sucks too, and has gone unranked due to inactivity because they don't get any money/resources to play games. You can jump all over small-time programs like Jamaica struggling to fundraise their way to the WWC, but it's worse when the big teams can't be bothered to scrape together a Women's team. It's the biggest factor in the WWC being such a small pond.
Several years ago I looked up the origin of "kid gloves". As it turns out, it has nothing to do with human "kiddies" but rather goat children, also known as "kids". "Kid gloves" are made from the very soft skin of baby goats.
Correct. Also, if the USWNT were really the brave pioneers for WoSo that people say they are they would push for a bigger WWC and better pay in NWSL.
two reasons I’ve seen. one was that football was “unseemly exertion” for women. I think the real reason is that the FA saw it as a threat to the men’s league which was still struggling after the war, both as an attendance hit and in chewing up the pitches for league stadiums. or do you mean was there a reason for the 53K? That was apparently that the Dick Kerr’s played pretty good football. After the ban they went on tour playing women and men’s sides in France and the US.
The second part. The Dick Kerr's? Was that a nickname or coach? I also tend to want to see multiple games before believing a team can always draw. Mexican teams do great in Dallas if they come only once a year or every other year. If they return to soon the second and third games start getting FCD attendance. It would have been interesting to see how well the women's attendance held up but the men felt threatened and stopped it.