Do girl's really have equal chance at football/soccer (or any sport)

    • Do girl's really have equal chance at football/soccer (or any sport)

      Thanks Hannah for this quote :thumbsup:

      HannahW wrote:

      According to Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, all doors are open to women. We just have to push them harder. Well, thanks for that, Gianni. I’m not sure why we never thought of that before.

      and the opinion of other people I've seen ;( with the basic physical difference between males and females where everything is geared towards male sport (with equipment, training patterns or TV/commercial exposure), do we really have an equal opportunity?

      Good Friend :play: Kinda Romantic :love: Ready to Rock :zomg:

      "If you try to follow fashion you'll always be chasing, and probably never catch it. If you be yourself and make your own style, fashion might just bump into you one day."

    • here's a couple of examples from two of the top female players and the difficulties that can exist at the most grassroot/junior level (similar to what I experienced ;( )


      When Lucy Bronze was 12 years old, she was banned by the FA from playing football alongside the boys at Alnwick Town Juniors.

      Lucy was the only girl and star of her under-11s mixed team but there was a limited number of local girls teams. Instead of being able to play alongside the boys, the FA told her no.

      Lucy told The Chronicle at the time: "I should be allowed to play with them if I want to. There's no reason why I shouldn't. I'm quite a good player and if the coach wants me to play I don't see what the problem is."


      Chelsea star Sam Kerr has admitted she pretended to be a boy for years in order to play football as a youth in her native Australia.

      Kerr’s new book My Journey to the World Cup is a memoir outlining her painful journey. It reads: “I knew I'd be the only girl on the team but that didn't worry me at all. I didn't want them to treat me any differently just because I was a girl.

      I remember one of the boys crying when he found out.”

      The 29-year-old was forced to quit playing for her youth team in Australia due to being regularly left sporting black eyes from playing in rough matches. Her family stepped in when she continued to come home with new injuries.

      “As good as I was out on the field, and as much as I loved playing the game, the physical differences between the guys and me eventually became too pronounced and the play was too rough.

      One day, I came home from a game with yet another black eye and bloody lip, and that's when my dad and brother both said, 'Nup, this isn't happening any more'.

      I was getting battered around so much out on the field that it was getting to be a big problem. Dad and my coach both sat me down then and said it was getting far too dangerous for me to continue to play.

      They said they were sorry, but that I wasn't allowed to play football any more. I understood the reasons why, but I was heartbroken. Back then, there were no girls' teams in my area for me to join, and to know that I'd never play a sport that I loved so much ever again was devastating.'"

      Good Friend :play: Kinda Romantic :love: Ready to Rock :zomg:

      "If you try to follow fashion you'll always be chasing, and probably never catch it. If you be yourself and make your own style, fashion might just bump into you one day."

    • My boyfriend is part of a girls football team and they have a few teams of all ages some of them have an A team and B team depending how good they are, a lot have joined since last summer and some get scouted by professional teams
      I’m not clumsy its just the floor hates me, the tables and chairs are bullies and the wall gets in the way

    • On the positive side, I’d say there are more opportunities for girls to play football than there ever have been, and the success of the Lionesses at last year’s Euros and the World Cup, and the increased media exposure that has brought, will hopefully continue that positive trend. But that doesn’t mean it’s a level playing field. There are far fewer girls’ teams than boys’ (or at least there are where I live) and all the stats show that girls don’t have equal access to doing sports at schools. Even for girls/women who are playing at a higher level, it’s still not a level playing field. There isn’t equal pay, and access to top class training and medical facilities isn’t the same as male players have. More research needs to be done into how physical differences between men and women impacts the risk of serious injury (the number of top class female players who missed the World Cup because of ACL injuries is frightening!), whether it’s to do with our menstrual cycles, nutrition, women having to wear boots that are actually designed for men, or having to train and play on poorer quality playing surfaces, which increases the risk of injury. There were teams at the World Cup who had to ‘crowdfund’ in order to get there, and other teams (including the winners, Spain) who were in dispute with their associations over different issues.

      One area in which women’s football is way better than men’s is in it’s inclusivity. While there are still no openly gay players in the Premier League in England (or, as far as I know, in any of the major European men’s leagues), that isn’t the case in women’s football where LGBTQ players are able to be open about their sexuality and relationships. Men’s football could definitely take a lesson from women there!

    • joannainthemiddle wrote:

      HannahW wrote:

      My school didn’t have a girls’ team and we never did it in P.E. lessons.
      It's sad about the school not having a girls' football team and not doing it in P.E. lessons. But I like that you used the apostrophe correctly.
      yeah it is sad, and I hope it improves in the future, but still sounds like it's some way off

      The team highlighted that only 63% of girls could play football in PE lessons, according to a Football Association (FA) campaign published last year.

      A report by England Football, part of the FA, said only 44% of secondary schools in England offered girls equal access to football in PE lessons.

      But in general for any sport or physical activities, if the current trend, including the legacy of Olympics that was meant to increase sport, I can't see anything positive happening ;( (boys or girls in any sport)
      Figures released by the government show 4,000 hours were lost in state-funded schools in the last academic year.

      There has also been a 12% drop since the 2012 London Olympics.

      You can read the full article here:
      bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66577367

      Good Friend :play: Kinda Romantic :love: Ready to Rock :zomg:

      "If you try to follow fashion you'll always be chasing, and probably never catch it. If you be yourself and make your own style, fashion might just bump into you one day."

    • BJade wrote:

      joannainthemiddle wrote:

      HannahW wrote:

      My school didn’t have a girls’ team and we never did it in P.E. lessons.
      It's sad about the school not having a girls' football team and not doing it in P.E. lessons. But I like that you used the apostrophe correctly.
      yeah it is sad, and I hope it improves in the future, but still sounds like it's some way off
      The team highlighted that only 63% of girls could play football in PE lessons, according to a Football Association (FA) campaign published last year.

      A report by England Football, part of the FA, said only 44% of secondary schools in England offered girls equal access to football in PE lessons.
      But in general for any sport or physical activities, if the current trend, including the legacy of Olympics that was meant to increase sport, I can't see anything positive happening ;( (boys or girls in any sport)
      Figures released by the government show 4,000 hours were lost in state-funded schools in the last academic year.

      There has also been a 12% drop since the 2012 London Olympics.
      You can read the full article here:
      bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66577367
      I'm impressed by your passion on this topic, Jade. I hope you can campaign for better things. As it says in the article you linked, 'The evidence is clear: unhappy and unhealthy children do not learn'

    • The problem with girls playing football in PE at school would mean enough would want to play and been enough teachers to play. It wouldn’t be fair to let the girls play with the boys because some of the girls are probably better than the boys. Joking aside girls should have access to football even if that’s after school activities or in PE

    • HannahW wrote:

      There isn’t equal pay, and access to top class training and medical facilities isn’t the same as male players have … women having to wear boots that are actually designed for men, or having to train and play on poorer quality playing surfaces, which increases the risk of injury.

      In an article about how Mary Earps has inspired girls who want to be goalkeepers, these are the words of Laura Setchfield, 17, who is the goalkeeper for West Bridgford Colts where Mary Earps played when she was young:

      “When I started playing for RTCs [regional talent clubs], the boys got to train at the men’s training ground, whereas I’ve trained on a quarter of a pitch most of my life. At [Nottingham] Forest, I had to get changed in a shipping container with broken lights before a game.“

      theguardian.com/football/2023/…goalkeeper-gloves-england