Women's association football
Women's association football, more commonly known as women's football or women's soccer, is the team sport of association football played by women. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries, and about 200 national teams participate internationally. The same rules, known as the Laws of the Game, are used for both women's and men's football.
After the "first golden age" of women's football occurred in the United Kingdom in the 1920s, with one match attracting over 50,000 spectators, the Football Association instituted a ban from 1921 to 1970 in England that disallowed women's football on the grounds used by its member clubs. In many other nations, female footballers faced similarly hostile treatment and bans by male-dominated organisations.
In the 1970s, international women's football tournaments were extremely popular, and the oldest surviving continental championship was founded, the AFC Women's Asian Cup. However, a woman did not speak at the FIFA Congress until 1986. The FIFA Women's World Cup was first held in China in 1991 and has since become a major television event in many countries.
History
Women may have been playing football for as long as the game has existed. Evidence shows that a similar game was played by women during the Han dynasty, as female figures are depicted in frescoes of the period playing tsu chu. Annual matches being played in Midlothian, Scotland, are reported as early as the 1790s.In 1863, football governing bodies introduced standardised rules to prohibit violence on the pitch, so the sport was considered safe for women to play. The first match of an international character took place in 1881 at Hibernian Park in Edinburgh, part of a tour by Scotland and England teams. The Scottish Football Association recorded a women's match in 1892.
The British Ladies' Football Club was founded by activist Nettie Honeyball in England in 1894. They played the first women's match officially recorded in England in March 1895. Honeyball is quoted as saying, "I founded the association late last year , with the fixed resolve of proving to the world that women are not the 'ornamental and useless' creatures men have pictured. I must confess, my convictions on all matters where the sexes are so widely divided are all on the side of emancipation, and I look forward to the time when ladies may sit in Parliament and have a voice in the direction of affairs, especially those which concern them most". Honeyball and those like her paved the way for women's football. However, the women's game was frowned upon by the British football associations, and continued without their support. It has been suggested that this was motivated by a perceived threat to the "masculinity" of the game.
The Munitionettes' Cup
In August 1917, a tournament was launched for female munition workers' teams in north-east England. Officially titled the "Tyne Wear & Tees Alfred Wood Munition Girls Cup", it was also known as "The Munitionettes' Cup". The first winners of the trophy were Blyth Spartans, who defeated Bolckow Vaughan 5–0 in a replayed final tie at Middlesbrough on 18 May 1918 in front of a crowd of 22,000. The tournament ran for a second year in season 1918–19, the winners being the ladies of Palmer's shipyard in Jarrow, who defeated Christopher Brown's of Hartlepool 1–0 at St James' Park in Newcastle on 22 March 1919.At the time of the First World War, female employment in heavy industry spurred the growth of the game, much as it had done for men fifty years earlier. A team from England played a team from Ireland on Boxing Day 1917 in front of a crowd of 20,000 spectators. The Irish side of this match was dramatised in the play Rough Girls in 2021. Dick, Kerr Ladies F.C. of Preston, England played in one of the first women's international matches against a French XI team in 1920, and also made up most of the England team against a Scottish Ladies XI in the same year, winning 22–0.
FA ban (1921–1970)
Despite being more popular than some men's football events, women's football in England was halted in December 1921 when the Football Association outlawed the playing of the game on association members' pitches, the FA stating that "the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged."Players and football writers have argued that this ban was due to envy of the large crowds that women's matches attracted, and because the FA had no control over the money made from the women's game. Dick, Kerr Ladies player Alice Barlow said, "we could only put it down to jealousy. We were more popular than the men and our bigger gates were for charity".
Despite the ban, some women's teams continued to play. The Northern Rugby Union did not follow the FA ban, so the short-lived English Ladies Football Association played some of its matches at rugby grounds.
In other countries, women's football was further debilitated by nationwide bans which often resembled the English FA's measures. The German Football Association banned women's football from 1955 until 1970. Women's football was also banned in France from 1941 to 1970. In Brazil, the Vargas regime and the military dictatorship legally prohibited women and girls from playing football from 1941 to 1979.
Tournaments
; The English Ladies' Football Association Challenge CupFollowing the FA ban on women's teams on 5 December 1921, the English Ladies' Football Association was formed, with 58 affiliated clubs. A silver cup was donated by the first president of the association, Len Bridgett. A total of 23 teams entered the first competition in the spring of 1922. The winners were Stoke Ladies who beat Doncaster and Bentley Ladies 3–1 on 24 June 1922.
; The Championship of Great Britain and the World
In 1937, the Dick, Kerr Ladies F.C., who had lost to Scotland's Rutherglen Ladies in 1923 but continued to be proclaimed as "world champions", played the Edinburgh City Girls in the "Championship of Great Britain and the World". Dick, Kerr won the competition with a 5–1 scoreline. The 1939 competition was a more organised affair and the Edinburgh City Girls beat Dick, Kerr 5–2 in Edinburgh, following this up with a 7–1 demolition of Glasgow Ladies in Falkirk to take the title.
The "revival" of the women's game
The English Women's FA was formed in 1969 as a result of the increased interest generated by the 1966 World Cup.The ban in England was maintained by the FA for nearly fifty years, until January 1970. The next year, UEFA recommended that the national associations in each country should manage the women's game. In 2002, Lily Parr of Dick Kerr's Ladies was the first woman to be inducted into the National Football Museum Hall of Fame. She was later honoured with a statue in front of the museum. It was not until 2008, that the FA issued an apology for banning women from the game of football.
Women's World Championships, 1970 and 1971
In 1970, the Torino-based Federation of Independent European Female Football ran the 1970 Women's World Cup in Italy, supported by the Martini & Rossi strong wine manufacturers, and entirely without the involvement of FIFA. This event was at least partly played by clubs and won by Denmark. A second edition, the 1971 Women's World Cup, was hosted by Mexico the following year. The final, also won by Denmark, was played at Estadio Azteca, the largest stadium in North America at the time, in front of crowds estimated at 110,000 or 112,500 attendees.Professionalism
During the 1970s, Italy became the first country to have professional women's football players on a part-time basis. Italy was also the first country to import foreign footballers from other European countries, which raised the profile of the league. Players during that era included Susanne Augustesen, Rose Reilly and Edna Neillis, Anne O'Brien and Concepcion Sánchez Freire. Sweden was the first to introduce a professional women's domestic league in 1988, the Damallsvenskan.Asia and Oceania
In 1989, Japan became the first country to have a semi-professional women's football league, the L. League – still in existence today as Division 1 of the Nadeshiko League. In 2020, Japan established the first-ever women's professional league in Asia, the WE League, which started on fall 2021.In Indonesia, the first recorded "national" women's football event, known as the "Kartini Cup", took place in 1981. The competition was held on an amateur level. Later competitions were also held in an amateur and semi-professional level, including the 1982 appearance of the first women's league, Galanita. The Pertiwi Cup, which drew contestants from throughout all of Indonesia, was first played in 2006. The first professional league was held in 2019 under the name Liga 1 Putri.
In Australia, the W-League, now known as A-League Women, was formed in 2008.
In 2015, the Chinese Women's Super League was launched with an affiliated second division, CWFL. Previously, The Chinese Women's Premier Football League was initiated in 1997 and evolved to the Women's Super League in 2004. From 2011 to 2014, the league was named the Women's National Football League.
The Indian Women's League was launched in 2016. The country has held the top-tier tournament, Indian Women's Football Championship, since 1991.
North America
In 1985, the United States women's national soccer team was formed. Following the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup, the first professional women's soccer league in the United States, the WUSA, was launched and lasted three years. The league was spearheaded by members of the World Cup-winning American team and featured players like Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and Brandi Chastain, as well as top-tier international players like Germany's Birgit Prinz and China's Sun Wen. A second attempt towards a sustainable professional league, the Women's Professional Soccer, was launched in 2009 and folded in late 2011. The following year, the National Women's Soccer League was launched with initial support from the soccer federations of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.In 2017, Liga MX Femenil was launched in Mexico and broke several attendance records. The league is composed of women's teams of the men's counterpart teams in Liga MX. On 20 March 2024, the league in collaboration with the NWSL, announced a new international competition named Summer Cup. This competition will feature six teams from Liga MX Femenil that will compete against teams from the NWSL. The inaugural edition is scheduled to kick-off in July 2024.
Unlike other countries, where a single club has both men's and women's squads, such as FC Barcelona and FC Barcelona Femení, in the United States there are usually exclusively men's and women's teams in the same city, with no relation to each other, competing in the country's major soccer leagues. However, there are cases of a men's team and a women's team coincidentally having the same owner, creating a situation that is somewhat similar to what is seen in other countries, but with the two teams having different names and logos. Some examples: Utah Royals and Real Salt Lake ; Houston Dash and Houston Dynamo FC ; Orlando Pride and Orlando City SC.