What’s Ailing Women Football?

FIFA estimates that more than 750 Million television viewers watched at least 60 seconds of action during the 2015 Women World Cup in Canada. The final between the US and Japan was the most watched soccer match in US Television history with 25.4 Million tuning in. The tournament also broke television viewing records in Canada, France, Japan, Australia, Brazil, China, South Korea and Norway for Women Football.

Women Football is heavily reliant on the spectacle of international tournaments to widen its popularity. The struggle has been to sustain that interest and make it bleed into Women Club Football. Women World Cup fall in the “in between” years, when there is no men’s World Cup or European Championship, which makes it ripe for strong television viewing and attendance figures.

In the US, soccer is more readily accepted as women’s sport. The sport history is not shrouded in the same patriarchal cultural baggage as it is in much of Europe. In recent years, other nations have risen to challenge the US dominance such as Japan and Germany. Lately, teams such as France and England have developed pleasingly while the Brazilian national side is no longer just 10 girls and Marta. The international picture is panning out to be more competitive, which will only serve to generate more interest.

One must be careful not to compare women’s football with top level men’s football. Women’s Football is played in a different style, for a start. But the concept of women’s football is still in its infancy. In England, women were banned from organizing themselves professionally in football until the 1970s. Women Football is bridging a gap of around 100 years of development compared to the men’s game. The tectonic plates of the domestic game in women’s football continue to collide. With the suffocating coverage of men’s football and the rolling soap opera of La Liga, the Premier League and the Champions League the women leagues struggle to be noticed.

India women national side holds a higher FIFA ranking than their male counterparts. It remains a mystery that such a populous country with a consuming passion for football continues to have such an uninspiring participative legacy. The Indian Super League was founded in 2013 with the ultimate aim of creating a flourishing domestic football scene. The women’s game in this sprawling nation requires a similar notion to put itself on the emerging map of women’s football.