Praising bad women football

“And that leads me to the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Again, there were some similarities with the real thing. The rules were the same as the men’s game and there were some classic World Cup ingredients such as heroic English failure, Brazilian flair, and ruthless German efficiency. But that’s where any parallels with the proper tournament end. The most obvious difference was the quality of the football - or rather the lack of it. FIFA president Sepp Blatter said last week that ‘women’s football has now reached a very good quality’. Perhaps he’s trying to atone for his inflammatory suggestion that women’s football might be more marketable if the players wore tighter shorts. However, even the highlights couldn’t disguise the fact that women’s football is still piss poor. […] I think the patronage that women’s football enjoys is, well, patronising.

Let me explain. The argument for televising women’s football is essentially a positive discrimination one. The women’s game is still developing and therefore needs a promotional helping hand. But I fail to see how giving the women’s game a condescending pat on the back and overlooking its glaring deficiencies is going to advance it. Take, for example, the reaction to Hope Powell’s team’s quarter-final exit. ‘The team has done England proud, they are a great bunch of players and a pleasure to be around’, wrote BBC sports presenter Jake Humphrey. ‘The FA and the country should be proud and I hope they get the credit they deserve.’ […] But saying ‘well done’, as a teacher might do to the fat kid who came last in the egg and spoon race because he tried his best, is, as I said, just patronising.

I reckon if female footballers want to be taken as seriously as their male counterparts, they should be prepared to be pilloried in the same way when they screw up. That means stringing up effigies outside pubs, giving the coach the turnip treatment, and booing our World Cup flops when they turn out for their club teams (which won’t be difficult as they all play for Arsenal). Cruel as it sounds, I think that putting Hope Powell and her team in the stocks and pelting them with rotting fruit and veg would be a giant step forward for women’s football.” Duleep Allirajah, “Bless ‘em, didn’t they do well.”