Identifying Best Practice in Women's Football - FIFA/CIES ...

2.2 Existing Academic Research on Women’s FootballThe existing body of academic research done on women’s football can largely be categorizedinto two areas of study; one being histories, focusing on the past challenges and struggles ofwomen to participate in football, the other being a feminist discourse and/or political studiesapproach looking at the current state of women’s football through the feminist perspective orfocusing on equality laws such as Title IX in the USA or gender equality laws in Europe.With the widespread media coverage of the 1999 Women’s World Cup in the UnitedStates, it appeared unexpectedly that teams from all over the world could “play like that,” 42which begged the question of how did these teams develop? With very few histories havingbeen written about women’s football at that stage, researchers focused on discovering andwriting the history of the women’s game. With the exception of personal stories of players,the majority of histories focused on an academic discussion of how the game developed in arespective country. 43Arguably, the most comprehensive book on women’s football is Women, Soccer, andSexual Liberation, a collection of essays focusing on the challenges women’s football hasfaced in the past and continues to face in certain countries. 44 Since most of the books thatwere released at this time are the first histories written about women’s football, they tend tobe expansive, covering national team, youth, and club, starting from the 1920s up until theearly 2000s. A very common theme is the struggle to gain access to participation, highlightedin Jean Williams’ book, ‘A Game For Rough Girls?’ focusing on the national associationsand patriarchal societies active role in suppressing women and girls’ participation in football,and the reluctance to evolve with the youth motivated societal changes of the 1970s and80s. 45 This similar vein runs through histories of other European nations, such as Brus and""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""42 In her interview, Haenni used this exact quote to describe the public’s reaction in Europe to the WWC 1999.Haenni, Interview, 3 June, 2010.43 Sue Lopez, describing her experience playing in England and Italy. Sue Lopez, Women on the Ball, A Guideto Women’s Football (London: Scarlet Press, 1997).44 Fan Hong and J.A. Mangan, eds. Soccer, Women, and Sexual Liberation (London: F. Cass, 2004).45 Jean Williams, A Game for Rough Girls: The History of Women’s Football in Britain (London: Routledge,2003)"!:"