As a fantastic tournament draws to a close I’m reflecting on the event, the experience, what it has meant both on and off the pitch and what we’ve learned.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino said women's football has experienced incredible growth and was confident that the World Cup ‘will win over anyone who remains skeptical about the merits of the women's game’. I reckon it did!
I’m excited about the impact this tournament has both on and off the field and the light it has shone on women and equity, not just in sport. Whilst I’m excited by this and delighted to see the progress we’ve made, if I’m honest, I’m also a little bit saddened for my own footballing past and the experience of those who played before the world caught up (and paved the way for this progress).
As a former player and avid fan of many years there’s not much I don’t know about this beautiful game. I’d spend hours kicking a ball around my back garden from the age of about 9, eventually playing in senior teams. An avid Manchester United fan I attended games and watched all the EPL highlights each weekend. The sort of passion that makes ex pats get up at 2am in NZ to watch the FA Cup Final!
To see women produce such fabulous displays of football and for it to be supported in the way that it has warms my heart but as the tournament draws to a close, what has it taught us?
First we’ve learned that it is football not soccer and it’s nice to have cleared that up! But there’s a few more myths it’s busted too about women’s sport. Myths that men would go to great lengths to explain to me in pubs across England once they found out I played. Which have mostly been versions of the following:
Women’s sport just isn’t as fast or skilful, they lack power. Women’s sport doesn’t attract the crowds so won’t get the big sponsorship needed to invest in their development and pay.
As someone who’s watched and played thousands of hours of this beautiful game across genders I’m happy to share that the skill, pace, passion and competition on show at these games had me gripped. Some of the best saves I’ve seen goal keepers make and the passing quality of teams like Spain, England and Portugal made me think of watching the Barcelona men play at the Nou Camp. Add to that the stunning strikes from all over the pitch and quality of the penalty shoot outs and strength on the ball.
The stats back this up too. England’s winning penalty kick in the round of 16 was recorded at 111km/hour, faster than any goal recorded in last season’s men’s Premier League in England. Chloe Kelly the striker of that ball also ended her celebration to console (and protect from the cameras) the devastated Nigerian goal keeper.
The best way to summarise this though has been delivered through a French Ad and the use of AI to change the gender of the players in the national teams highlight reel. This French telecom advert used AI to show we can’t really tell the difference. Skill is skill, it’s just our bias that changes our view when we see the gender of the player on the ball.
So what about the interest that this masterclass of the beautiful game has garnered?
11.5 million people watched the Australia, England semi final which is the biggest rating in Australia since the system began, for anything not just sport
Before that their round of 16 game against Denmark attracted more TV viewers than both the AFL grand final and the State of Origin.
The Matildas opening match saw a stadium crowd of 75,784
The Matalidas had already at that point sold more jerseys than their male counterparts the Socceroos did during and since the last mens World Cup.
Whilst a smaller population it’s also worth noting that 42,137 came out to watch New Zealand's opener. The biggest crowd in our country's football history — men's or women's.
With 2 billion global TV viewers the tournament viewership has almost doubled since the last women’s World Cup.
In the space of a decade crowds at women’s football games like these has gone from 700 to over 70,000. We’ve also seen reports of Irish towns moving morning mass times and Brazil changing work times for civil servants so that people can watch games. There was even talk of a public holiday should Australia have won the World Cup!
This is before we consider the impacts off the field. The economic growth the tournament has provided Australia and New Zealand and the millions of young girls watching on who can now be what they see, certainly a privilege I was never afforded growing up as a female player 20 years ago. It wasn’t something that girls did, there were no girls teams at high school and it was certainly off the cards as a career option.
Parents have reported that, without prompting, their boys want a replica Rapinoe shirt just as much as a Messi one. In their eyes they’re simply both football idols – gender doesn’t come into it.
So I think it’s fair to say that whoever has said that women’s sport isn’t as good or doesn’t get the eyeballs is quite frankly been proven very wrong. However that’s not the end of this story and this tournament has also shone a light on the extreme inequity that still exists.
What’s most impressive for me is not just the above stats but that these women have achieved that with one hand tied behind their back figuratively speaking. Alongside these headlines have been ones of ill fitting kit, below par training camps and preparation and of course a huge lack of investment financially and pay inequity.
During this World Cup it has transpired that much of the kit was made for men, meaning the shorts had to be rolled over at the top and the socks kept falling down the shins. The answer to making women enough football boots to satisfy a tournament of this size was just to produce smaller mens boots. Now this is not a new approach to making things for women. Most of what we see in our life (our cars, medical procedures, air conditioning, furniture, iphones and infrastructure) have all been made with men in mind and more often than not the female alternative is just a smaller version of the mens. As if women are just smaller, lesser than versions of a man. The thing is, that’s not true so it doesn’t work. One of the reasons there’s been many ankle injuries throughout this World Cup may be because of said boots. Women’s bodies are not just smaller mens bodies, we’re built differently so our uniforms have to allow for this. The same applies whether it’s our football teams or our emergency services and yet this same mistake is still being made today.
So whilst we’re making progress, there’s still a long way to go. Still faced with harassment and discrimination the game is different for girls. It’s been well covered at this World Cup the number of teams considering strike action over lack of pay. The South African women’s team are paid a tenth of their male counterparts. The families of the Jamaican team talked of their crowdfunding campaign to fund the trip in absence of support from their Football Association.
The Matildas gripped a nation and yet their prize money is still nowhere near what the Socceroos received in their World Cup, despite the Matildas gaining much more success on the field. In fact the round of 16 exit for the Socceroos at the last mens World Cup got a bigger payout than the overall winner of this years women’s World Cup (nearly three times more in fact)!
A lot of work has gone into even getting this far, with the USA team campaigning tirelessly for equal pay despite being infinitely more successful than the USA men for decades. It was only in 2007 FIFA first awarded prize money at the Women’s World Cup. 25 years after it did the same for the mens competition. Even today the prize money sits at one quarter of that paid to the men.
It’s been fabulous to see so many people, especially families and men at the games. It’s also been warming to hear of people talking about ‘the game’ last night and not having to specify it was women’s football. It’s not the women’s World Cup, just the World Cup and it doesn’t matter which gender occupies the shirts. This may lead to us acknowledging the existence of others beyond the men that play in our accolades and giving credit to the amazing achievements of those in the womens game.
Perhaps quotes from FIFA like ‘Ronaldo is the first player to score at 5 World Cups’ can now be corrected to say ‘first male player’ with a nod to Brazilian, Marta who did it first and scored at five consecutive Olympics.
I’m proud we’ve co-hosted this tournament in a way that has shone a spotlight on women’s sport and been part of this journey. There’s still a way to go but the progress has just been helped enormously by this experience. Whether it’s equal pay, professional facilities, investment in support staff and training the future is bright.
If this is what we can do with what we’ve got currently, imagine the quality of a tournament when all these women get equal access to the funds and support around the international teams in the men’s game!
If you’re a women in sport or committed to leveling the playing field you might be interested in my next book, due out in 2024 you can find out more about PowHer here.
