The organisations that are talking about promoting and developing women's football are the ones that are holding it back.
World cup qualifiers are ridiculous in the men's game (does San Marino need to play England *twice* for a combined score of 15-0?), and it makes even less sense in the women's game when there are fewer developed nations and the gaps in funding etc are even greater.
England's 20-0 victory over Latvia does nothing for England and actually damages development in Latvia, how many girls are going to be encouraged to take up a sport after watching the best players in their country be defeated like that.
Meanwhile yesterday's FA Cup final, was the final from the 20/21 season. On the surface it looked like the FA did a good job by using the fixture as a way of both celebrating the anniversary of the competition and acknowledging the 100 year anniversary of the ban on womens football in England. But the reality is that last season's final is taking place this season because the competition was abandoned last year due to the pandemic, whilst the men's competition was supported to continue. The WSL was also terminated early for the same reason, whilst the PL was celebrated.
The referee missed two incredibly obvious penalties in yesterdays game. This is less about the referee's individual failure but rather the overall standard of training and lack of support, - for example VAR was not made available, despite the game being in a perfectly well equipped national stadium.
The game was good overall, although I was disappointed by Arsenal's poor start.
06-Dec-2021 12:09:34