This column has spent the summer looking inwardly at the reasons why the SWPL find themselves struggling to keep their head above water.
But what about the outward reasons?
As women’s football globally continues to build across every facet – participation numbers, commercial growth and audience numbers, what are the reasons for Scotland lagging behind?
There is never going to be a singular answer. Investment, of course, is the key to the sustainability of the league, but it is impossible to overlook the wider cultural reasons why the women’s game still struggles for airspace.
This week, a social media post about the situation at Aberdeen women’s team prompted a number of “interesting” responses. The gist of them were simple – women don’t deserve club resources to prop up their game. Football is for everyone until it’s not.
That there remains a Life on Mars element still lurking in a societal underbelly is revealed with the most basic dipping of a pinkie toe in social media waters.
With the bulk of the Aberdeen squad defecting this summer, and many of the players heading to Montrose, it is not unreasonable to ask the question about why a club of Aberdeen’s standing have struggled to support a women’s team.
Coach Scott Booth left at the end of a season where Aberdeen finished ninth in a 10-team league – a play-off win kept them in the top flight – and where there were whispers of dressing room unrest and fall-outs.
On Thursday afternoon, the club announced that former Scotland captain Rachel Corsie had been appointed to the board of directors to support the development of the women’s programme. She will have her work cut out.
But if the culture among supporters around the topic of the women’s team needs work, Aberdeen will not be in any way unique in this respect.
Questioning the validity of a women’s team and being irked that there is any investment being funnelled their way is an argument that is aired readily whenever the topic arises.
Sometimes, as has been the case this week on social media platforms, those views are aired publicly and unambiguously. But equally, there is a sense that it is a prevailing feeling within clubs, without being said so overtly.
Last season, as Hearts went for their first SWPL title, the penultimate game of the season on an afternoon when they could potentially have clinched the league, was played at Oriam in front of a stand that houses a couple of hundred fans.
TV cameras picked up on the small group of spectators who had wandered behind the goal area with their dogs on a lead, giving off the vibe of a brief stop while out on an afternoon ramble. The optics were appalling.
Equally, a week later when they did clinch it, the celebrations took place at Meadowbank and not at Tynecastle. On an afternoon when the club were still smarting from the way the men’s league campaign concluded, the positivity of the women’s team winning their first title was surely a story worth telling.
Clouded as it was by the imminent departure of coach Eva Olid amid cuts to her budget and an open secret that half the team were heading south, it remained an opportunity to showcase the women’s team in the best light.
In a couple of weeks, Rangers will launch an attempt to make it into the group stages of the women’s Champions League as they host their mini-league, their first step on an arduous qualification journey.
With two games across four days and coming as the Scottish Premiership kicks off for Derek McInnes’ side, the decision has been made that those games will not be played at Ibrox. One would hope that if they successfully navigate a passage into the group stages of the competition, the doors will open.
That the women’s game needs to commercially get to a point where it can stand on its own is inarguable. But it also needs some support to get there.
AND ANOTHER THING
It has been the most low-key of build-ups to the start of the SWPL season with pre-season games largely played behind closed doors.
Most teams have been left trying to plug the gaps given the large exodus of players south of the Border this summer, with ample new faces set for their league introduction. What the quality is remains to be seen.
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But for Rangers and Hearts, who face early Champions League qualifiers in just over a week, there is a need to hit the ground running. Neither have made it into the group stages of the competition before – European football is a first for this Hearts side.
Rangers play Slavia Prague a week on Wednesday and, should they emerge victorious from that, will face the winners of Ajax and Brondby. Hearts face Gintra. Neither has been particularly well promoted anywhere.
AND FINALLY
Megan Rapinoe has been an exceptional advocate for women’s football.
But it is difficult to side with the idea of biological men playing in women’s sport. The trans issue is not an easy one given the competing rights of all involved, but, ultimately, what is women’s sport if those born biologically male can compete in it?
It is a difficult conversation that has been weaponised by certain factions, but it is impossible to ignore the fundamental physiological differences.
