Gender issues

(P4) Gender differences in sport has been around for many years and is something that is difficult to make better in football in particular. Football from the start was only a man’s sport therefore as time has gone by it has been more accepted by the male population. There are still female players and teams but the level of competition and coverage is much lower than men’s. There has been much progress since the start of football to make it a more gender balanced game but prejudices take time to break down. Male football is much more popular than female football and this could be down to the media not covering female football as much and in some cases at all.

(M4) Commercialism is a factor that could affect gender issues in football. You never see adverts or promotions that involve a female professional footballer or team. This is because the aim of these businesses is to make money not keep people happy. They sell their products to the target audience, which in football terms is mostly male. Football games such as FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer do not host female players. These two games are massive in modern times and they are a part of almost every child’s home in the UK. This is because football is extremely popular and everyone loves the game. EA sports could very easily release a game that is female football only or include female football in the original FIFA games. Although, this may have an effect on sales rates as the majority of people with a games console are male. Males may not want to play a female football game because the level of performance may not be as good as males.

Sport on the global stage is a massive part of football. The male World Cup is huge and there are hundreds of millions maybe billions of viewers every time it is hosted. Although, there is a female World Cup. This competition is not broadcasted on TV or talked about in media. You never hear anything about the female World Cup even though it is ‘a worldwide event’. This is something that may be seen as offensive by the female public, this is if they even know about the event. To say that there are female football players that are playing at an elite level, it should be at least a talking point. The players of these teams may find it extremely disheartening or offensive that they have progressed to the highest level of competition and they are not even being seen. This is something that I believe should be changed to make the sport progress and develop.

(D1) Gender issues is a factor that is preventing the sport from expanding even further. Females may not feel accepted to a footballing community because there is little football teams at a young age. There are hundreds of thousands of Sunday league football teams across the UK and hardly any female teams in comparison. A short term effect of this is that females may not stay active at a young age because the schools stick with what the majority of kids like and play football. There are females that will enjoy football but there are also children that do not enjoy it and therefore will not take part or not try during lessons. This is bad because they may go on to live an unhealthy, inactive lifestyle. The only positive from this is that it makes it easier for a teacher to teach one sport all the time because there is not much preparation involved.

A long term effect of this is that the children that are not getting involved may never want to get involved in PE again. Then when they leave school and they do not have to take part in any sport they won’t. This will lead to an inactive lifestyle and as they grow up they will find it harder and harder to try and get involved. If they put sport off at a young age when they get to secondary school they may be overweight or too unhealthy to get involved without feeling embarrassed. If a school changed it so that they didn’t do football, it could have an effect on the male children. This is because most children will want to play football because it is so popular and publicly promoted all the time. Therefore if they do not do football the male children may not want to do PE. This will lead to them being inactive and eventually if no schools did football, the sport itself may not exist or be as big as it is. This is because there will be a generation where none of the males will have played it at a young age and won’t be good enough to play. The sport could continue but it may not be at a good level as children gain main skills from school or Sunday league teams that they join through interest.

If the sport became very low level standard then fans may not want to watch it anymore. Therefore the sport would not exist because fans keep the sport alive and running. As another example fans would generally rather watch a male football team play than a female football team play. This is once again down to the level of football being played but it can also be influenced by other factors. Female football is never promoted as being really good by social media or newspapers. Therefore there is no ‘buzz’ about female football so why would fans pay to go and watch it? I believe in order for female football to progress TV programmes should do more and show it on TV. This might generate a bigger fan base of female football which would lead to more fans attending games. Although this could have a negative effect on male football fans because then the TV may not broadcast as many male games. Therefore the fan base of male football teams could decrease and at the moment male football generates a lot more income for businesses involved.