willy eckerslike said:
Bigga said:
True, to some degree.
Eurosport shows Women's football from international level u17 upwards, in tournaments.
BT Sport has recently been covering the national league and cup games.
Most male sports had decades of free coverage, but obviously things have changed media-wise. Still, the government should be intervening. Eg Why was there no coverage of the English Ashes win last time round? Even struggle to find anything on Sky.
The BBC did cover the women's darts final which is something, and having male/female tournaments running side-by-side is a good idea.
One problem I see with some ladies team sports is that they just don't work well, and to me football falls into that category. The pitch just looks too big, maybe they need to experiment with new formats to avoid constant comparison with established male versions, 7-a-side perhaps on a smaller pitch and smaller nets. Tennis has a different format in the major tournaments, and it's worked well for years.
I would actually be inclined to agree about shrinking the size of the game, to suit the female ability, at this current stage in development. Whilst the skill factor is there on a decent level, the general stamina it takes to be about the pitch, for 90 mins on a full sized pitch, is different for women.
The playing time shouldn't alter, but the changing the size of the pitch and nets will produce better quality, all round.
For example, we have the biggest pitch in all the FA division(something like 110 x 90/ 93, I think) whilst 100 x 66 yards is Crewe Alexandra's ground, the smallest. I would probably go 5 yards smaller to keep the quality of the women's game, in tact and improve it.
The reason being is it would equalise the gulf between the women that have been playing for years and the ones that have just been given backing. That includes internationals, for me.
Just my opinion on a developing game.
