Last week came the announcement that the hugely popular EA Sports game Fifa 16 will include women for the first time. There will be just 12 international all-female teams, far fewer than their male counterparts, and it won’t include women’s league teams, but many have acknowledged this as another important step towards equality in the game – Fifa has not featured female players in any of its 22 previous editions, despite having sold more than 100m copies worldwide.
It is not the only piece of good news women’s football has had recently: last week, the BBC gave its first Women’s Footballer of the Year award to 20-year-old Nigeria and Liverpool forward Asisat Oshoala. Meanwhile, the Women’s World Cup kicks off in Canada on Saturday, with Swedish broadcaster TV4 keen to show its support for gender equality by calling the competition “VM i fotboll”, which means, simply, World Cup (although Fifa is not quite so keen on the idea).
Footballer Shannen Meadows, who captains Goldsmiths university’s women’s football team, is a regular player of Fifa and says she is “thrilled” to see women finally being included in the (console) game. “There’s still sexism across most sports, but more in contact sport, such as rugby and football,” says Meadows. “Look at when Sian Massey-Ellis is an official at one of the Premier League games – her offside decisions are forever being questioned. I feel that in order for sexism to be removed from the football industry it needs to be tackled in the same way racism is: with players, both male and female, promoting equality.”
While women’s football fans will be pleased to know that the number of female players is five times what it was in 1985, it is a shame the increased focus on women’s football comes at a time when Fifa is facing perhaps the worst crisis in its history, with 14 senior officials arrested for corruption last week.
However, there is some satisfaction to be had in knowing that the popularity of women’s football is on the up, even as the frenzy surrounding Sepp Blatter – the man who once suggested women should wear more “feminine clothes” to increase the popularity of the game (“They could, for example, have tighter shorts”) – continues.
