- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Opinion
The thing that was most different about the fans in the stadiums at the World Cup was that the majority were women.
Sure, us blokes were there as well, cheering on the Matildas as fervently as ever. However, the tournament saw hundreds of thousands of women and young girls buy tickets, flock to matches and support football in a way that we have never seen before in Australia.
As wonderful as the support was and the subsequent scenes we saw in the stadiums, the odd cynic might ask where all of these football supporters have been prior to 2023.
As an attendee at a couple of matches in Sydney outside of my media commitments, it did appear there were a considerable number of women at the ground who were as enthusiastic as can be, yet not well versed in the game, it’s rules and the tempo that makes football the most beautiful of all sports.
During the semi-final between the Matildas and eventual runners-up England, I had the privilege of sharing the evening with my wife and two daughters. Around me, were seated some interesting characters, obviously devoid of any real knowledge of the game, but as passionate as a bandwagon fan could be.
A simple early foul on Sam Kerr was met with a chorus of boos and multiple women on the eastern side of Accor Stadium shouted, “Send her off!”
I must admit to getting a chuckle at that and thinking they must be NRL fans, as the AFL has still to implement rules that allow for the immediate removal of a player from the field. My youngest looked at me quite intently and said quietly, “Calm down Dad, they are a bit excited.”
She was far from wrong and as squawking woman behind me shouted out the funniest line I have ever heard at a football match. I must admit to almost coughing up a small section of the gluten free pie that my darling wife had purchased for me.
The woman appeared to be a close friend of one Mary Fowler; calling her by first name and all, and as the Aussies struggled to gain traction in the midfield while a goal down early in the second half, she screamed “Do something Mary”.
Mary Fowler was simply superb during the World Cup for the Matildas. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Not is a disparaging way, more in a manner that proved she had little idea about what was happening on the field. She was simply there riding the wave with tens of thousands of other women who were determined to make a poignant statement about the power of women’s sport, better pay and conditions and a desire to see something closer to equality between men and women.
Hear, hear, I say. Nothing would please me more than seeing exactly that and having the best female athletes able to make a decent and fair living from the game they love, what ever that might be.
However, we live in a world of financial realities and not egalitarian perfection based on little more than what is perceived to be ethically correct in terms of equality between genders.
Therefore, to the thousands of Australian women who turned out to watch the national team during the World Cup, I say, do the same during the upcoming A-League Women’s competition which begins in October.
Cortnee Vine will be a major drawcard in the A-League Women’s in 2023/24. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
What better statement could be made to Network 10, Football Australia and the Professional Footballers Association than seeing five to ten thousand fans at every A-League Women’s match in 2023/24? Notice would be taken and should the numbers rival the men’s competition, a push for the equal distribution of the riches would be well validated.
Until that situation is reached, the vast majority of the money available to A-League clubs will continue to be spent on the men’s high performance programs and the academies that provide the next wave of talent into the competition.
Should the female masses that spruiked the amazing achievements of the Matildas back up for the upcoming season of top flight female football in Australia, the league would easily draw more supporters than the A-League Men’s.
Sadly, we all realise that is unlikely to be the case and that for women’s sports to draw the salaries, corporate and media support achieved in the men’s version of the game, there needs to be something near to comparable attendance at matches and eyeballs on screens at home.
Nobody would be more pleased to see that transpire than me and the three women I live with. However, for that to happen, the droves of women who flocked to the Women’s World Cup need to get off their backsides and out to the stadiums in support of the women they so want to see as equal.
Until that happens, the status quo will remain and the frustrating disparity will continue.