SPORTS AND SOCIETY
I’ve been watching a lot of football recently.
Nothing new there. So have a lot of other people over here in Europe. Also, not new. But the professional men’s leagues haven’t started their seasons yet, so we’ve been watching the Women’s European Championships that are being played in England, the country where I now live.
And everyone has been taking the competition very seriously. As a matter of fact, many of them have been getting into the games as much as they do when the men’s club and national teams are playing. That’s new.
In the past, women’s teams struggled to get people to attend their matches, but during this tournament, tickets have been hard to come by and a capacity crowd of over 87,000 fans watched the final at Wembley. TV audiences, meanwhile, have been estimated at over 11 million viewers for individual games.
Of course, it didn’t hurt that the home nation made it to the final and defeated Germany 2-1 in extra time to win the competition. But that result was not nearly as important for the women’s game as the fact that the home team played high quality, entertaining football and kept the nation interested right up to the very last minute.
And even if England had lost the final, I still believe their efforts would have secured the women’s game a place in mainstream British sports.
One reason I’m telling you about this is that I’d like to see women’s football become a popular spectator sport in Botswana and the rest of Africa as well, because I think it would encourage more girls to get involved in football and other sports. That would certainly help them keep fit and be good for their self-image… and it seems to be what’s happening over here.
Another reason is that the rise of the women’s game appears to be having a positive effect on society. Men, women, girls and boys are all getting excited about the ladies’ team… but they are doing it in a civilised way
Families have been going to the games and there hasn’t been any tension between the supporters of various nations either in grounds or in the streets before and after games. I also think quite a few men have been surprised by the athletic abilities of the lady players and by the football knowledge of the female presenters who have been commenting on the matches for the BBC.
As a result, many men have changed the way they see women athletes, and hopefully, that will have a knock-on effect for how they and their children view women in other aspects of life.
And I’m thrilled by how enthusiastically journalists and the public have embraced the England team manager. Serena Wegman has become a national hero… even though she is not English. She is Dutch, but she has become the face of English football and everyone seems to know who she is.
I think that is especially positive since the men’s game has often sparked nationalistic confrontations between rival supporters at international tournaments. The women’s Euros, however, have just been about the beautiful game… and women’s sports, football and society in general have been the winners.