The systemic persecution of women's football

When conversations regarding women's football are had, there always seems to be this underlying misunderstanding about the history of the sport and why it's growth has taken the trajectory it has. I find that more often than not the general football fan doesn't know that women's involvement in football isn't a new thing, women have always been into football. And so I can imagine the question "If women have always been into football then why does women's football seem like such a new thing? Why is it not as big as its male counterpart?".

Women's early involvement in football

Painting by the Ming Dynasty painter Du Jin shows women playing Cuju

Women have been playing football since its inception. From an ancient Chinese competitive ball game called Cuju, which is the earliest recognized form of football, historical evidence shows that women played the game informally alongside and against men, and they were trained as professional players and even formed professional women's teams. 

   

Illustration of BLFC's first match
 in 1895         

In terms of the modern version of the sport there are reports of women playing football from as early as the 1790s in Scotland. Reports of the first ever women's international match date back to 1891 with a match between Scotland and England, and a few years later in 1894 the first ever organized women's football club the "British Ladies Football Club" was founded by activist Nettie Honeyball. The team played it's first ever match in 1895 in front of a crowd of around 10,000 spectators. 

Women's football saw a peak in popularity during the first World War, football became a popular pastime for women and was encouraged for good health and wellbeing. With the progression of the war the women's game became more formalized and teams emerged from munition factories, people would flock to watch these teams play against each other. 

These matches were usually used to raise money for charities with the most popular charity match being between the Dick, Kerr Ladies FC and St Helens, the match took place in December of 1920 at Goodison Park in front of 53,000 spectators with an estimated 10-14,000 more fans locked outside the stadium, a bigger attendance than that year's men's FA cup final. 

Women's football teams playing in front of thousands at that point was a thing of regular occurrence and the English Football Federation saw this as a threat. Women's football threatened to overshadow the men's game.

The systemic persecution of women's football

On December of 1921, the English FA banned women from playing on association members' pitches. The FA officially stated that football was unsuitable for women and the press pushed medical advice from doctors claiming women's bodies were too fragile for the sport and that it was "too much for a woman's physical frame".

“Complaints having been made as to football being played by women, council felt impelled to express the strong opinion that the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and should not be encouraged"                       - from the official FA ruling 

    

This ban spread to several countries across the world, teams like Canada and Belgium immediately followed in the example of the FA with the latter also citing "medical reasons". In 1933 France followed suit and formally instituted a ban on women's football then later made it illegal in the country and all the territories of the French colonial empire. The British colonial administration in Nigeria would ban women's football when it saw growth in the late 40s  also citing the 1921 FA ban. 

Most of these countries would make claims that football would damage women's fertility and health, a misogynistic claim that only proved that women were seen as not more than baby makers they also saw it as spectacle, something to laugh at and countries like the Netherlands went as far as to claim that women's participation would damage the reputation of the sport.

Women's football faced systemic persecution all over the world for many different reasons as claimed by the governments of those countries. Some bans like in South Africa were a result of racial discrimination, where black women were banned from participating when white upper-class women were allowed to play. In some Muslim countries like Afghanistan and Iran football and women's sports as a whole got banned because of the strict religious laws the countries operated under. 

In instances where it wasn't banned outright women would face social prejudice if they tried to play football and would often be shamed for it because their participation broke societal norms when sports were seen as too masculine an activity for women. It was seen as something that went against the pre-existing culture and that led to the players facing threats of violence made against them. 

Other countries refused to provide resources and facilities for women to participate in football which ultimately had the same effect as the bans on the growth of the sport. Organisations like FIFA showed disinterest in women's football. 

Women faced a lack of infrastructure they couldn't overcome and in the instances where they did  like in the World Cup of 1971 which drew more than 100,00 spectators, they still had to make use of private stadiums because the federation of Mexican football threatened to fine any club that granted women access to their stadiums. Many of the footballers that represented England in the competition  were banned from playing the sport for six months and fined after the WFA took over the national team, and they also gave the coach Henry Batt a lifetime ban. 

Jill Stockley one of the footballers who represented England in the world cup faces a ban

The effects on modern football

And to answer the question posed earlier, the decades of bans and other similar efforts has led to women's football not developing naturally like men's football has, the sport was forced into what was effectively a restart which has led to the big gap in popularity between men's football and women's football. As well as the gap in funding opportunities and the social stigma caused by the false medical reports about it not being suitable for women still prevails to this day. 

Women's football is still banned in some countries like Afghanistan, Malaysia and Brunei, and even in countries where the bans were lifted the sport still faces a lack of infrastructure and little investment. Some clubs and countries establish women's football teams but still don't make an effort to actively invest in the teams' growth, even big football clubs like Real Madrid are still barely investing in their women's team. 

 We have come far in the development of the sport but we still aren't fully there, because for the sport to develop worldwide all women have to have equal opportunities to take part in football.