Abstract
in 2011, a ‘professional’ league for women’s football in England was launched by the English Football Association (FA). The FA Women’s Super League (WSL) has raised the media profile of women’s football, attracted greater sponsorship and signalled, for the first time, a more co-ordinated effort by the FA to develop the game from grassroots to international level. However, whilst the FA’s insistence that WSL’s future is best secured by clubs aligning with male ‘parent’ clubs has led to more buy in from English Premier League (EPL) clubs, some historically established women’s clubs have been excluded from the highest echelons of the sport or even folded. Few clubs are truly professional, with a heavy reliance of volunteerism, and salaries modest. Attendances have dwindled and there have been criticisms of player welfare, inadequate support for players facing racist and sexist abuse, poor competition structuring and marketing centred on heteronormative notions of family. Popular discourses heralded professionalization as evidence of significant progress in gender equality and as signposting an unequivocally positive future for the game. We assess the FA’s conceptualisations of WSL as a neo-liberal project that has not consistently worked in the best interests of all players, clubs, and fans. With the announcement of a feasibility study exploring an EPL takeover of WSL, we examine why the FA may, once again, abdicate responsibility for the development of the female game, at elite club level, whilst retaining control of the grassroots and international aspects of the sport.
Presenters
Donna L WoodhouseSenior Lecturer and EDI Lead, Academy of Sport and Physical Activity, Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Sports Management & Commercialization
KEYWORDS
WOMEN'S SOCCER, WOMEN'S SUPER LEAGUE, ENGLISH FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION,COMMERCIALISATION
