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I'd watch Women's football if it was the USA or Wales. In fact watching the USA women win championships is quite exciting. I have very little interest in the Euros though and I couldn't give a toss about England.
They are part time - The entire England women's squad cumulatively earn less in a year than Rooney earns in a week. Obviously the quality is pretty damn shocking in places.
But it's still football - the same reasons above don't stop me from watching and enjoying non league
So what if they are part time? Not good enough to play in leagues that are full time, the game is nowhere near being good enough to go fully professional.
Efforts made to promote it to the next level have historically been pitiful - the debacle of the newly created Man City team being parachuted into the top division at the expense of Doncaster Belles for example.
The best thing that could be done for women's football would be for it to be a fully summer league, avoiding any conflict with men's football - current season started in Feb so there was an overlap. It needs televising, not Channel 4 jumping on the bandwagon, not BBC showing the women's cup final as their token yearly coverage. Dare I say it, but moving to summer with a Sky deal to fill Skys football channel would generate interest and drive standards up.
We'll therein lies the rub not good enough to go professional, not paid well enough to afford the time to get good enough.
Professional football is so good it makes semi pro look ****ing shit
Participation is the key, if you look at the boys game you have millions playing it, clubs can pick up and discard huge numbers of boys a year, and simply keep the best ones. With girls its a hell of a smaller pool and you then have to work with the ability that you have. That obviously has a factor in quality.
Boys are lucky in some respect, as in all villages there will be several sports clubs (cricket, rugby, football) of which they are able to fit into, off the back of that they form friendships and social bonds with the players of their own age that are in the same systems as them. For girls there may only be one football/rugby/cricket club in their entire region, never mind their village, so instead of it being something simply there for them they have to go out and seek it.
As a father with daughters, i applaud the rise in womens Rugby/Football/Cricket, simply to offer girls the opportunity to play sport, which as a boy was a given when i was growing up.
Even if squillions participated, if the infrastructure isn't there, nothing will change. England's play throughout the tournament, beating the Jocks aside has been effective yet generally pretty negative. Yes, Sampson takes credit for making the best of what he's got but technically, sides in the tournament are light years ahead.
Men's football has 92 league clubs, god knows how many non-league sides - I'm ignoring pub league sides, I'm talking the whole league/non-league hierarchy. Trying to throw that into place for women's football would cause chaos. What's needed is growth - and that growth has to come from the top level. That's why I'm talking about for example a Sky deal. The investment needs to be made to then further drive infrastructure improvements.
It's a chicken and egg situation. Public don't follow it domestically due to poor standard. Lack of funding available due to poor standard means not enough money to develop infrastructure to improve the standard. Granted, more women playing means theoretically the standard should improve... but there are so many things that feed into that - coaching levels, ability to fund professional sides etc. Any organic improvement in quality due to more women taking it up will be very slow progress indeed.
What Sky have done very well is make chicken sh*t look like chicken salad with regards to the Prem. Stoke-WBA would be built up as an event... that's the kind of backing women's football in the Uk really needs. Sell the game as being something special. Increase number of potential attendees by running league in summer only, avoid clashes with the men's game.
I cant see there being a sky deal, but i can see a tv deal in the offering, with it drawing C4 biggest viewing figures of the week its got to look like an attractive proposition to show international matches.
With the money floating around in the premier league it wouldn't hurt to filter it down into the womens game, as these women are fans, and the more girls they can get interested in the game, the more fans they will attract to them at a later date, and Womens football is only going to grow.
https://youtu.be/k5CH5eHNpTc
womens footie used to be so much more entertaining
C4 can't deliver the TV coverage needed to push women's football towards even lower league levels though. They've not got the expertise in producing sporting events, not got the ability to promote as well as Sky do.
Where Sky would be the best fit is in the rebranding of the Sky Sports channels - so dedicated Prem channel along with a general football channel. Original content would certainly help fill up the channels, especially during summer. Only other channel I could see doing a good job would possibly be Eurosport.
Attaching the womens game to the Prem money as is, eh, I'd not agree. When the bubble inevitably bursts, funding will then fall as the Prem protects itself - see what they've done to FL clubs. We know womens football won't get the same big money mens football does, so should the mens deal plummet over the years you'd not expect any womens deal to be affected, certainly to the same degree.
Equally, I'm sure Prem teams will demand a quid pro quo. Those not in the WSL, not running womens teams will want a slice of the pie - they sure as hell won't want to have to bother promoting or anything ( see the Man City / Doncaster fiasco ).
The thing to remember mate is that professional women's football is pretty new as in all they have to concentrate on is training and the matches . Many women work a full time job and play football amongst some of the top teams. Could you imagine if Kenneth Zohore had to go and work a 37.5 week then fit the football around it! He wouldn't be half as good or skillful. Like the men's matches some are boring and some are brilliant. Some of the women's matches I've seen I've thought the women were at a higher level of skill than watching championship men's and they are quick! What you haven't got is the crowds and support in women's football. You haven't got the buzz of the chanting and thousands upon thousands of fans giving the match an edge! After watching that programme last week about women being banned from football for 50 years and not being allowed to play on any pitch up and down the country - is there any wonder that they dont get the crowds now. The fact is that women were bringing in bigger crowds than the men 100 years ago until the ban took place and they have tried to wipe all knowledge of this from history. I love watching g the men's football but think it's unfair to say women's football is boring and bland. I definitely support both and with time women's level of quality will grow and grow.
Strangely agree with the Dr here.
Woman's football may well have improved but it is still a terrible standard.
Their training sessions are being shown on SSN and considering this is supposed to be the cream of the woman's game it's pretty embarrassing to watch