Why do we watch women’s football?
When I was 9 years old my father gave me as a present the official ball of the English Football League. I used it in my balcony, dribbled past the living room chairs, and did fail nutmegs to my dog that only wanted to nail her teeth on the ball. By that time, I have already played with the Liverpool team in FIFA 2004. Always in my house: for me, football was an indoor activity.
On the 8th of May 2021 at 14.30 the Argentinian feminine football Selection plays a friendly match against Venezuela. I turn on the TV and search for the transmission on my channel guide. Female speakers, commentaries, players, referees, DT, and lineswomen. An entire festival of women that go out and show their passion for football.
It may seem exaggerated to argue about a sport. But it isn’t, a sport is not just a sport, it carries a series of habilitated signs, prejudges, and opportunities. Deep down, we are discussing women’s possibilities of developing themselves in an activity considered since ages “men’s territory”. That also includes the financial acknowledgment and the fame of the big ones.
I think we watch female football because we imagine a reality in which it is a professional sport in every country, and we get emotional. We watch it because of the adrenaline that goes off when we celebrate a goal, the anger of a missing penalty, and the talent that marvels. We watch female football on Youtube channels and websites. We comment and like female football stars’ social media posts. We try to associate faces with names because we are interested in knowing their trajectory and clapping the effort they made in an activity that nowadays is not rentable. We watch female football so that the student of sports journalism feels that her effort has not been in vain. We want to show her that all her pieces of methodic knowledge of boards, changes, passes, amounts of goals, and games played are worthy. We want to make them visible, and to open markets so that more female football players can gain experience, compete in the most important clubs, and wear, full of pride, the shirt of their national team. We dream of changing narratives, shaking obsolete schemes, feeding the tradition of a sport that has its glory but its thorns too. I think we watch female football because we want to be a part of history. We want to help little girls that fantasize about playing at a stadium while preventing them from leaving the urge to kick a ball in the hallway of their house.
Written by: Micaela Cañal
