Gregg Covers Sport

1.9 million people filled the stadiums for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year, 800,000 more than the previous edition 4 years prior in France. So why does the opinion that women’s football isn’t a popular product still exist? To answer that question, you have to look back at the history of the game in order to understand where the argument for reparations comes from.

During its foundations, women’s football proved to be extremely popular with the public. The Dick Kerr Ladies team, at the peak of their popularity, played in front of a 53,000 strong crowd at Everton’s Goodison Park as they faced off against St Helens on Boxing Day.

The crowd size rivalled nearly all male teams at the time, which alarmed the patriarchy at the Football Association who, fearing the impact that this would have on the men’s game, banned women’s football in 1921, saying:

“The Council feel impelled to express their strong opinion that the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.” 

It’s not hard to imagine the levels the women’s game could have reached in the 50 years the ban was in place for. Last season, Barcelona twice pulled in crowds of over 90,000, while the BBC announced that their peak viewership for the women’s World Cup final between England and Spain this year was 12 million, a figure greater than the number that watched the men’s tennis final at Wimbledon in July.

“Diverting resources is the only way to give justice”

Stefan Szymanski, a professor of Economics at Case Business School in London, puts forward the case for men’s football revenues being used to invest in the women’s game to address the damages.

“The only way to give women justice in this system is to divert resources into women’s football”, says Szymanski. “If soccer associations tried to ban the women’s game today, the response would be rather different from 1921. It’s not just that attitudes have changed toward women’s soccer, but also that the legal weapons available to women have been sharpened.

“The law in the U.S. and other countries is much tougher now against restraints of trade. It would be straightforwardly illegal – a violation of antitrust laws – to ban women from playing”, adds Szymanski, “any association that tried to impose such a ban, and lost, would find itself on the hook for a big sum of money.

“In the U.S., each side in the case would assess the economic damages arising from the ban – chiefly lost earnings potential, as well as any knock-on effects. The judge would then decide which side’s estimate was most reasonable. Then, under U.S. law, the penalty for an antitrust violation is levied at three times the value of the damages.”

Sport for all: a bridge to equality, integration and social inclusion, a report written based on a meeting of the Committee for Culture, Science, Education and Media for the Council of Europe in 2016, outlined steps it wished to see taken to remove gender-based discrimination in sport. Two of the headlines that emerged were a demand for public service broadcasters to devote more airtime to women’s sport in order to help promote a non-sexist view of sport, and for there to be a greater provision of “girl friendly” sports facilities in disadvantaged neighbourhoods that would allow girls and young women to have access to sport without fear”.

“Handouts are not sustainable”

However, some in the game want the funding to come from increased commercial opportunities, rather than perceived handouts from the men’s game. Louise McGing, General Manager at Charlton Athletic Women FC, is one of those.

“Commercialisations and value-based investment is what’s needed, not really handouts which isn’t sustainable” says McGing, and that commercialisation opportunity may be coming soon.

On the 28^{th of} November it was announced that Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship clubs had agreed to form a club-owned organisation, with each club acting as shareholders, something McGing feels will help take the game to the next level.

“The new company will have a commercial approach to the leagues, which is the right approach. 

“All startups need investment to thrive. The women’s game is only now receiving the startup investment that it needs, but there has been significant investment in the women’s game, at all levels and this continues to grow” acknowledges McGing,

Reparations in a wider context

While reparations in sport would be breaking new ground, the implementation of such a measure would not be a new concept to the world.

The French government currently pays reparations to families of Algerian Muslims – known as Harkis – who fought for France in the Algerian War of Independence, and after World War Two, the American government created the Indian Claims Commission which paid reparations to federally recognised Native American tribes who had their land seized by the United States. However, reparations can lead to resentment, as happened in Germany after World War One.

Whether you believe that men’s football owes a debt to the women’s game or not, what cannot be disputed is the continual rise in popularity of women’s football. A sellout crowd at the Emirates Stadium for the top of the table clash between Arsenal and Chelsea in December provided even more evidence that the gap is shortening day by day.