Women’s Football: how far have we’ve come?
How women’s football has been showing progress across the borders and building a better future
The fact that the NWSL was the 1rst professional contact sport to return to play and came out with great results can be recognized as a great achievement for all people working in the Sports Sector. Besides that, there is the impressive growth of viewers to celebrate:
“The NWSL delivered a massive 493% overall jump, according to league commissioner Lisa Baird, and a record 653,000 viewers tuned in to watch its championship on CBS. All other team sports saw their viewership numbers drop year-over-year, according to Sports Media Watch”.
The Angel City FC ownership group was definitely another great moment for Women’s Football. The fact that famous and powerful women decided to invest in the women’s game is great news for all. It’s awesome not only because of the great names attached to soccer such as Abby Wambach, Shannon Box, Mia Ham, Julie Foudy, and Joy Fawcett, but also because of the other sportswomen such as Candace Parker, and Serena Williams. And, more recently, Naomi Osaka also started investing in the North Carolina Courage.
Another recent great moment was watching Megan Rapinoe, Nadia Nadim, Marta, Shanice Van de Sanden, and Pernille Harder (among other great people) at the “Outraged — Football Tackles Discrimination” initiative. It’s very satisfying when footballers of such influence team up for important social issues and we can cheer for the positive cultural impact that they might achieve around the world.
I think that Mara Gómez becoming the first openly transgender woman to play in a pro soccer game in Argentina, and Yuki Nagasato playing for the first-team of a Japanese men’s club in Japan were also two HUGE events that broke barriers in the international Women’s Game.
According to The Guardian, Gómez’s achievement is not a global first. Trans footballers are active in American Samoa, Spain, Canada, and England — but it is an important moment in a country where football is entwined with national identity. “I represent a breaking of the binary”, says transgender professional footballer Mara Gómez.
In an interview for BBC Sport, Quinn, the defender for Canada’s women’s football team, recently spoke about publicly coming out as a transgender. The 25 y.o. soccer player said that for “the most part”, women’s football is a supportive space — but there are still “spaces of ignorance”.
Quinn is currently on loan at Swedish club Vittsjo GIK from the American National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) side OL Reign. “It’s been a really long ride with [Canada team-mates] and they are people who I consider some of my best friends”, Quinn says. “A lot of those players have been my concrete supports going through this process.”.
Nagasato also crossed the gender barrier when she signed for Hayabusa Eleven on loan from parent club Chicago Red Stars of the NWSL. She will be playing for NWSL expansion side Racing Louisville starting in the 2021 season. About the experience on the men’s team, the soccer player said:
“(…) Building relationships, learning each other, sharing a feeling and emotions are things that need for the foundation of working with people & there is no gender difference between that.
Certainly There are More Speed, more power, that’s a fact. But these are a part, not EVERYTHING. Hope You’d see more skills which is important for playing football right. There were lots of things to learn, so can’t wait for the next capture. (…)”
The Japan Football Association — JFA announced the Women Empowerment League — WE League in June 2020, Japan’s new professional women’s soccer competition, with the competition to commence in autumn 2021. The new league planned to have 6–10 professional teams but in October JFA already revealed 11 clubs for the 1st season. The association also stipulated that at least 1 executive per club must be a woman, while females must account for at least 50% of the employees at each team within the next 3 years.
Kikuko Okajima’s vision for the WE League is nothing short of ambitious. Top players and female coaches from around the world. Promotion of LGBTQ issues. Community markets outside stadiums. Monetization of players’ biometric data. WE League chair plots an ambitious, progressive path for the women’s game. It’s interesting to see these movements also considering the Tokyo Olympic Games to come.
Okajima lived in the United States for 29 years. Before that, she was a member of FC Jinnan, Japan’s first women’s soccer club, and helped to found the Japan Women’s Football Federation — the organization that eventually pushed the JFA to begin registering women’s players and form a national team.“It’s important to think about what your post-player ambitions are while you’re still playing, and there isn’t much support available for players to accomplish that.”, Kikuko said.
Argentina is replacing Japan at the SheBelieves Cup that kicks off on February 18th. Argentina just had their first women’s professional football championship. Boca Juniors have beaten River Plate in the final, thrashing their rivals 7–0 to cap off 2020/21 ‘transition tournament’. Boca was already the most successful female club in Argentina, with 23 titles won in the amateur era, before 2020. However, Argentina’s national federation — AFA laid out a new strategy for women’s football last autumn, which included a pledge for 12 players on every team to be on professional contracts.
In Brazil, since March of last year, the Brazilian Football Federation — CBF has equalized the values in terms of awards and daily rates between men’s and women’s football. That means that, as players, they win the same thing. What women and men will earn at the Olympics by victories or by stages will be the same, revealed the CBF’s President.
The Swedish Lilie Persson was chosen as Pia Sundhage’s new assistant coach for the Brazilian Women’s Team aiming at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. This was the successful partnership that led Sweden to win the silver medal at the Rio 2016 Games.
Brazil has shown a record of investments in the women’s competitions, with prize quotas and 100% broadcast of the games. Female representation has been growing and we’re finally seeing the necessary work with the female base categories that are competing right now in the 2020’s Brazilian U-18 Girls National Championship. It is not possible to detach these advances in women’s football in Brazil from the recent changes in the CBF, such as, in particular, the hiring of women like Aline Pellegrino and Duda Luizelli.
In South America, referees have been breaking barriers as well. The Argentinian referee De Almeida, among the Brazilians Edina Alves Batista (referee) and Neuza Back (assistant referee), were the first women to form part of the refereeing team at a FIFA Club World Cup 2020 this Sunday (2021 Feb 7th).
Well, there’s much more to consider around the globe, but look at how far we came! That’s my compilation of how women’s football has been showing progress borders and contributing to a better future. What positive facts would you add?
