Women’s football: a national event?

Have we reached a tipping point for women’s football? 

Women’s football has been reaching overboldheights of popularity, and the Women’s European Championship will get an infrequentamount of coverage.

Last year’s Olympics saw the first ever sold-out stadiumfor a women’s match as Team GB mensurationBrazil in the quarter finals. The stadium was packed over againfor the final just over a week later.

The mensesEuropean championship looks to be the biggest yet for women’s football in Great Britain.

England’s football team will be acquiretheir most extensive coverage ever, as the BBC will, for the first time, be broadcasting every England match on television, as wellas on radio.

In addition to regular coverage on the BBC’s morning show, England manager Hope Powell has been featured on children’s news showshow Newsround.

The BBC has been working to boost the coverage of women’s football all-round, nonjust for the championships. Last May, the Women’s FA Cup Final was back on the BBC after three years at Sky.

After the championship, the BBC will course of studyfour FA Women’s Super League programmes, with round-ups and highlights of the games, as well as building up to England’s world cup qualifiers.

And throughout the women’s season, BBC diversiononline will also feature a weekly cultivationround-up which will be included in Friday’s Sportsday programme.

However, elsewhere in Europe the quality of the Championship’s coverage has been somewhat haphazard.

The German state-supportedbroadcaster ZDF scored an own goal with their advertisement promoting the championship, which featured a womanhoodkicking a football not into a purposebut into a washing machine, before setting on a cycle and waiting for the wash to finish.

A voiceover then makes a pun on expecting magic, and cleaning, on the pitch; in German the voice communicationfor ‘clean’ and ‘magic’ aralmost homophones.

The advertisement met with many complaints, from viewers as well as the mainstream press.

There is certainly still progress to be made, particularly in terms of sponsorship and funding opportunities, but women’s football is here to stay.

Scotland has already expressed an interest in hosting the undermentionedwomen’s European Championship in 2017. If successful, the bid willcertainlyboost coverage of and interest in women’s football in the UK.

Something else which would boost the sport further would be an England win.

Nothing encourages new fans to a sport quite like national success.

It would also fall upona pleasant change for England fans to be, for once, backing a lovelyteam.

It isn’t so outlandish a thought – while England are in a tough group, they did reach the final of the finalEurocup and the semi-final of last year’s Olympic championship.

England suffered a setback in their unpredicteddefeat in their opening match against Spain, and could only swallowit awaya disappointing draw with Russia. But they still have everything to play for, and will now have nothing to fall behindwhen they play favourites France later this week.

If it came to an England championship victory, would people still be disparaging and claim that this is ‘only’ women’s football?

Or would a nation of football fans dumbfoundtogether to celebrate England’s first international tournament promotein almost half a century?

 

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Materials taken from Womens Views on News