Record-breaking World Cup and Barbie soccer player. Fashion for women’s ball is coming
– “Women’s football is not real football, nobody wants to watch it,” reads Robert Lewandowski in a video published by FC Barcelona. The video contains several comments collected online, addressed to Barca players. The ongoing women’s World Cup shows, however, that there is no shortage of people willing to watch women’s football. However, there is still not enough money for the discipline to develop. And understanding that women’s and men’s football should not be viewed in the same way.
Video from Robert Lewandowski was published on the occasion of this year’s Women’s Day and was intended to draw the fans’ attention to the problem of notorious insulting of ladies playing football on the Internet. Eleven months after the semi-final of the Champions League, in which Barcelona hosted the German VfL Wolfsburg (with Ewa Pajor in the squad), over 91,000 fans watched from the CampNou stands. Last year’s women’s Euro final at Wembley, where England played with Germanyfollowed by over 87,000 fans.
The stands are also filling up at the ongoing Women’s World Championships in Australia and New Zealand. The organizers sell out almost all tickets for the matches. Due to the huge interest, the Australia – Ireland match was moved to a stadium twice as large.
– Tickets for some matches have not been available for several months. The World Cup kidnapped sports-loving Australians, but there are also a lot of fans from around the world – says tvn24.pl Patrycja Salwa, a former footballer and currently a coach, who lives in Melbourne. “It took some time for the fans to warm up, but now the stands live the games,” he adds.
The TV stations that decided to show the event did a great job. In Germany, the matches of the national team attract more fans than the recent friendly duels of the men’s team.
But Robert Lewandowski read anyway that “women’s football does not care about anyone” and footballers should “go back to the kitchen”.
Comments on players tend to be vulgar and misogynistic. Of course, football players are also often hit, especially after a weaker match, but you can get the impression that football players get hit just for wanting to play football. Critics don’t care much about their level of play. And when they do refer to it, they argue that women play football worse than men.
And they’re actually right.
But it’s not about comparing to men. After all, women play with women and choose the best among them.
“Comparing men’s and women’s football is pointless. Of course we play differently, just like volleyball or handball. Men are more athletic, they play faster. For us, there is more commitment and leaving the heart on the pitch. You have to like our football – says Patrycja Salwa.
Swedish researcher Jonny Hjelm from Umeå University points out that the criticism of women’s football, unheard of in other sports, comes from the belief of the couch fan that “even he would play better”. The same fan, however, is aware that without training he will not jump two meters high or run 100 meters in less than 11 seconds, which women regularly do. And no one accuses them of the fact that these results are far from the achievements of men.
There is one more thing to this. In women’s volleyball, the net is suspended 19 centimeters lower than in men’s. In Grand Slam tennis tournaments, women play to two, and not – like men – three won sets. Meanwhile, in football, the size of the field and goals, the size of the ball and the length of matches are the same for both genders. A group of researchers from the University of Trondheim calculated that if anthropometric differences between the sexes were taken into account, women’s matches should last 70 minutes, and the goal should be half a meter narrower and nearly 20 centimeters lower.
What job, what pay? Not necessarily
From time to time, the heads of fans, and sometimes also athletes, are inflamed by the topic of equal pay in men’s and women’s sports.
– We have data showing who attracts more attention, more fans and sells more tickets. The division must take this into account and be fair – said the top tennis player Novak Djokovic a few years ago.
“With all due respect to the ladies, they should get what they generate,” he said Swedish soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Australian footballer Sam Kerr, who plays for London’s Chelsea on a daily basis, earns £417,000 a year. She is the highest paid female athlete in the world. Several of her Chelsea men’s team mates take in as much every two weeks – not to mention the salaries of players choosing the recently fashionable Saudi direction.
Sam Kerr, captain of the Australian national team, during the 2023 World CupEPA/JAMES ROSS
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