Women's Football - The long road to equality...

For over a century, society has cultivated and promoted the men's game into becoming the most popular sport on the planet; how distant is the women's game from the success of their male counterparts, and will we ever achieve a level playing field?

Coaching IE University Women's during my time in Madrid

I would like to begin by accepting the inherent irony that comes with this post: a man writing extensively about the issues within women's football. It's an impossible task to entirely encapsulate the feelings and struggles of female players, however I strive to speak on the matter with adequate perspective. Ultimately, attitudes towards the women's game are a microcosm of a broader societal gender imbalance, the substance of which is far too complex and convoluted to divulge in a short, five-minute read. Additionally, I won't advertise this post as being wholly optimistic for the future of the game; there are some cold, hard truths about the gender divide in the sport which we merely have to accept as beyond our control, at least in the short run. Nonetheless, I hope to firstly educate you about the modern issues and difficulties embedded within women's football, and secondly construct some valuable insights into the future opportunities for development within the sport.

Contrary to popular belief, men's football has not always been favoured to the women's game. During the First World War, as the vast majority of young men were sent to the frontlines, the prominence of women's football grew drastically, with matches often attracting over 53,000 fans. The game peaked in the years following the war as it maintained its international attraction despite the return of men, before the FA halted the game's growth in its tracks, deeming the sport 'unfit for females' in 1921 and banning it professionally. This was the first of many tragedies in women's struggle for equality in football, as the exodus from the game lasted exactly five decades, time enough to eradicate the immense progress made in the late 1910s. The sport's reinstatement in 1971 served to illustrate the gigantic and growing disparity in two once equally popular sports; the Men's FA Cup final saw Arsenal conquer Liverpool in front of over 100,000 fans, while the Women's FA Cup final in Crystal Palace saw a turnout of fewer than 1,500. Interestingly, the Women's World Cup of the same year was played in Mexico; as the tournament was played in a country which had never criminalised women's football, the final drew an incredible 115,000 fans. Even the Women's Italian World Cup Final in 1970 saw 40,000 fans attend.

1920: Women play football in front of a packed out crowd of c.55,000

Despite the mass international popularity of women's football in the early 1970s, the progress of the game was largely muted. As the 1970 and 1971 Women's World Cups were not FIFA-sanctioned, the tournaments have been largely erased from history. No official records recognise the existence of these World Cups. Various other international tournaments took place in the 1970s and 1980s, but the popularity of the game ceased to reach the heights of 1971. The AFC Championship of 1975, noted as the potential replacement of the 1970 and 1971 World Cup, saw just 11,573 fans attend the final. Even more shocking, Italy hosted various unofficial World Cups throughout the 1980s, known as the Mundialito (little World Cup), with England crowned as winners twice. The beleaguered history of the Women's World Cup therefore suggests that England have championed the world, but, as of the official FIFA statistics, the first Women's World Cup took place in 1991, and the fight continues for the footballing women of the 1970s and 1980s to be officially recognised.

Five decades on in the present day, a century since the previous peak of women's football in 1920, attendances are healthy, and participation is growing. Viewership of the Women's World Cup Final in 2019 was a new record: 1.12 billion viewers. And yet, beyond the statistics, the women's game is still infected with sexism. As part of my research before writing this article, I naively chose to type "women's football" into the YouTube search bar, hoping to find information and documentaries explaining the gender disparity. I was met with a surprise. The first result was: "The 20 Funniest Moments in Women's Football", coupled with a thumbnail of a woman's backside in skimpy latex shorts. Other results included: "Football, Women, Comedy: Fails, Bloopers", "Why Women's Football Sucks" and, on a more positive note, "Why You're Wrong About Women's Football". The 'comedy' videos have accumulated millions of views each, while the least viewed video was the latter, with just 100,000 clicks. The evidence is clear, some men appear to satisfy their sexism with videos of women's inferiority, cementing their view of women's sport as comedic, a poor imitation of the hyper-masculinity we always see in men's sport - notice the irony.

The YouTube search results for "Women's football"

The comments were worse, yet even more insightful. The frequency of overt sexism was astounding; "I've seen more skill in my PE class", "I watched it and it's bollocks", "They'd lose to a group of U15 boys"; these insults below a video which simply aimed to promote the women's game, not cause offence. It became apparent that these men were disgruntled by the prospect of quality women's football, sparking defensive outbursts. One can't help but notice an element of insecurity; that while it is true that women's football currently produces worse players on the whole, and that the USWNT lost to Dallas U15s, the professionals would comfortably outperform the keyboard warriors, sat behind their computer screens in a fit of rage, feeling unnecessarily threatened by the superiority of a woman. Their outrage reflects the casual sexism we see in broader society, whereby there is no greater emasculation than being beaten by a woman; society, even in 2020, suffers from an innate rejection of women's sport.

The heavy criticism launched upon the quality of women's football, while extremely offensive and ultimately a poor argument, is unfortunately somewhat founded in reality; this is the harshest truth of the gender gap in modern day football. There is no doubt that the standard of men's football is currently superior, but there are a huge range of contributing factors founded in vast developmental inequalities: predominantly footballing age, physicality, coaching quality and funding.

The most notable is footballing age, a term used in coaching to give a vague idea of the footballing maturity of a player. It is simply the total of the number of years a player has been training under a coach, and it's considered an important measurement of a player's understanding of the game. In men's football, the average 21-year-old casual player will have a footballing age of 12-16, meaning they have spent well over a decade learning and developing from various qualified coaches. The range of footballing ages within amateur women's teams is in stark contrast, with the most competent players having grown up with football, while the weaker girls may have picked up the game in their late teens or early twenties. This is not to say that newer players cannot benefit from natural talent and absorb the game quickly, but, as in most sports, experience pays.

Should we discount women's football for a lack of physicality? The men's game proves that is ignorant.

However, the most common argument used to discredit the women's game is physicality. The average woman is 10cm shorter than the average man, and professional athletics teaches us that men are, generally, more naturally gifted in terms of stamina, power and speed. I find this argument interesting. It is an undeniable truth that, even at the top level of sport, men may be able to cover more ground and move more quickly, but we seem to be ignoring the vast evidence in the men's game that physicality is not everything. As shorter but more able players will concur, football is a game of timing, positioning and technique; physicality can be a major strength, but lacking it does not exclude you from success. Of the last 10 years, a large majority of the Men's Ballon d'Or nominees have been below the average male height: Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Neymar, Hazard and Griezmann to name but a few. Even our historical heroes suffer from the same disadvantages; Maradona, Pelé and Eusebio were all below 5'9". We also ignore the sport's general transition towards possession-based football, as more clubs discard the traditional direct approach which relied on height and strength. As physicality is rendered increasingly unimportant in football as a whole, one has to wonder how long it will survive as an integral part of the male argument against women's football.

The "physicality" argument also extends to the problem of goalkeepers; how can the sex who are generally smaller be equally competent in the same size goal frame? This is the second impossible challenge. It is obvious that shorter goalkeepers will be less able to reach their posts and therefore less able to parry shots. The percentage of shots saved among female keepers will, inherently, be lower than that of their male counterparts. I, myself, have been outspoken in the past about my disappointment as to the quality of women's goalkeeping in general, but I have come to the conclusion that this argument is easily refuted with one question: do you watch football for the goals, or for the saves? If you say the latter, you are either lying or you are a goalkeeper. While the development of female goalkeepers through coaching has a long way to go, and a sharp rise in the standard is expected, the higher quantity of goals in the present women's game makes for a more exciting, volatile and nail biting match-day experience.

It is often argued that women should therefore play on smaller pitches with smaller goals, but you'd be delusional to believe that this would be positive for the image of the women's game, let alone financially viable. This would require the mass manufacture of different goal frames, changes to pitch markings and rules; the logistics are simply not worth the very limited pay-off. Further, it would only serve but to embolden the sexist laughter of those men who consistently discredit the women's game. It should come as no surprise that people often call for this change in an attempt to completely invalidate the sport, since no argument can exist for women being of equal ability when the conditions they play under are not the same as men; it would not be a 'fair test', though how is it fair today that women have to catch up on 50 years of halted progress?

The IE Women's team working hard with my colleague, Dario.

The penultimate developmental discrepancy between the two games has been the differences in the quality of coaching. In my attempt to capture the true emotions of women in football, I reached out to some of my previous players for their opinions regarding the causes of variance between the men's and women's games. The most interesting and nuanced account I received was from Emma McCarthy, an Australian who has competed at all levels of the game, including men's football. Her experience ranges from playing at the highest level of state football in Australia, as well as competing alongside future Men's A-League stars in training. While in Spain, she was one of a few stand-out players in the IE University Women's squad I coached. Her experience was as follows:

"I found that there was a very large difference in terms of what the coaches expected of me. With the boys I was expected to meet the same standard of quality in passing, footwork, fitness and possession-games - but even at academy level, the first-hand difference in what was expected of us when I was trained by men in a girls' team was insane"

"I played one season at the highest level available to girls in the state and found that only then was the intensity and focus similar. If it takes getting to that level to have a similar standard expected, I think there's going to be a discrepancy between the playing levels of men and women for a while"

"I found the difference in intensity to be extremely frustrating; drills would be much slower with the girls. The attitude of my teammates was sometimes lacklustre and less determined, but this comes from coaches not expecting more when we were kids, and it carries over into our teenage years"

"It would become a cycle of the coach 'coaching at their level', reducing standards and enabling a gender imbalance over time"

In reading Emma's account, the consequences of derogatory opinions become evident. The attitudes continuously perpetuated by men about women's football osmose themselves into the beliefs of the game's teachers; how can women learn and develop at the same level as men when the coaches themselves do not believe equal ability is achievable? When teaching is a process of gently pressuring improvement, progress cannot possibly manifest itself in an environment where growth is rarely encouraged. It appears that the priorities of coaching women's football are perhaps inverse to the correct methods: we should not train women to be as good as men, but we should play them alongside each other for as long as possible. The former creates an environment whereby women are already seen as disadvantaged, while the latter maintains a level field of ability until physical boundaries become preventative - though we have already shown that physicality may not be a hindrance in the long run.

Megan Rapinoe, a determined but divisive character in the interesting fight for equal pay.

On the 4th May 2020, the US Women's National Team lost their lawsuit for equal pay, despite the unanimous support of their male colleagues. This brings us to the most notorious, controversial and dangerous topic in women's sport: wages. To examine and evaluate the legality and ethics of the gender wage gap in football, it's first crucial to note that this is a sport owned by private companies. As the basic economic theory of labour markets dictates, the more profit earned by a private company, the more they are able to raise their employees' wages; trophies are irrelevant if they are worth little. And so the argument stands: the men's game brings in considerably more revenue, and so it is fair that men are paid more. To a large extent this is fair, but it fails to explain some vital ethical conundrums, such as the magnitude of the wage gap, the ethical argument for similar funding, or the anomaly of the USWNT. For instance, Brazilian star Neymar earns the combined salary of the 1,693 highest paid women's players. As one of the world's most entertaining, newsworthy, marketable footballers, there are few valid arguments that Neymar's wage should be equal to that of his female colleagues, but the extreme size of this wage disparity is hugely unreflective of the divide in revenues. Prize winnings and television rights for the Women's UEFA Champions League were 0.5% of their male counterparts, while Neymar's wage would suggest that this is 0.05% - a tenfold difference.

Nonetheless, it remains clear in the short run that men's football is considerably more valuable and hence the players' earnings are hiked, but this does not explain why the USWNT lost their lawsuit, having generated more income than the USMNT in 2019. Having generated revenues of $50.8 million, $0.9 million more than the men, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and the rest of the squad still suffered from wage inequalities up to 40% lower than the men they train with. What's more, the three part revenue stream of the US Soccer Federation, responsible for both genders, consists of prize winnings, sponsorships and match income, which the USWNT dominated by winning the 2019 FIFA World Cup. In other years, in which the USMNT participate in the far more valuable Men's World Cup, more of a debate is to be had. Ultimately, the ethical question is: should the American women be punished for an international disparity in the game, despite their domestic primacy?

IE Women's Squad and I (far left) after their first win of the season. With support of the IE Cheerleading Squad

The various problems I've discussed appear to be entrenched in the modern game for the foreseeable future. The disparity in footballing ages is already being tackled by grassroots clubs throughout the world, encouraging both sexes to participate in casual weekend sessions from the ages of 4. Though there will be a quality lag of nearly twenty years before our youngsters reach the professional game, the volume of women who have lived and breathed the game from birth is on an inevitable upward curve. Likewise, huge strides are being made in terms of coaching girls through their crucial developmental years; it was only as recently as 2008 that girls were disallowed from competing in FA recognised boys' leagues at any age group. Nowadays, necessary law relaxations have facilitated mixed sex teams from Under-7s all the way through to the adult game, with women playing alongside men to maintain equal playing standards. However, there is a long road ahead in reducing the variance between the men's and women's games:

As Emma reported, the attitudes of those generations responsible for teaching the next must face radical change; it can no longer be acceptable for men to coach women with lower expectations, or to breed a culture of inevitable inadequacy. The obvious solution is to bring more female coaches into the game, which, alongside educating male coaches, should bring about a change in philosophy.

We must ask ourselves what equality means. It is unlikely that the 50 year void of women's football can ever be entirely corrected, and while the convergence of the two sports' quality is anticipated, women's football will most probably remain an asymptote, forever approaching equal ability, but never quite reaching it. Thus the focus must be elsewhere; to instead provide equal opportunities and reach equal visibility, the two major faults of the modern game which cannot subsist in a sport which labels itself as accessible to all. This means funding for grassroots, which currently receives 1.4% of the injections when compared to the already self-sufficient Premier League. It means attracting lifelong fans through subsidised ticketing, increased television broadcasting, visiting schools, promoting merchandise, and exploiting fans pre-existing affiliations to the male club equivalents; true fans of a club are fans no matter the game: men's, youth, or women.

But ultimately, the most difficult challenge we face is extraneous to football. The widespread societal comments and pre-cast judgements of a woman's sporting ability are the most obstructive parasite to the success and growth of the game. Until we can nullify the sexist insecurities of prominent voices worldwide and subvert the automatic dismissal of a women's superiority, we cannot expect society to accept women in football. The likes of Andy Gray and Richard Keys have been rightly driven underground; their hysterical laughter launched upon the supposed inadequacies of women was a hugely damaging misuse of their platform. How can the next generation be expected to love women's sport while their youth is continuously influenced by voices of female rejection? Though the gender divide in footballing ability may remain, we must normalise the expression of optimism surrounding the future of women's football. We must leave behind the archaic views of seeing sporting women as comedic, whereby their failures become more viral than their successes, seen as circus artefacts for male amusement as opposed to their deserved glorification. While the history of women's football has been left tattered and besieged, we must all fight to ensure that its future, from grassroots to a professional level, is elevated and revered in the same fashion as our beloved men's game.

For questions on information sources, please tweet me @ethan_ferrao