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When football is talked about most of the fanatics always think of men’s football especially the English Premier League or the UEFA Champions League, forgetting that women also play professional football. Women’s association football is a team sport played by women in various parts of the world and 187 national teams participate in this professional sport internationally. The rules used in men’s football are also applied to women’s football, in the 1970s international women’s football tournaments became popular. Women did not speak in any FIFA Congresses until 1986 when one woman Ellen Wille made her voice heard in Congress later in 1991 the first FIFA Women’s World Cup was held in China and ever since the tournament has become a major televised event in many countries.

HISTORY

Women have been playing football for so long Scotland started as early as the 1790s, in 1863 the football governing bodies introduced standardized rules to be used to enhance sportsmanship on the pitch during a match. The first International Women’s match took place at Hibernian Park (Scotland) in 1881 and the British Ladies’ FC was founded in 1894 by activist Nettie Honeyball. Despite women’s football becoming more popular the FA banned the sport in England from December 1921 to the year 1970 stating that the sport is rather unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged to play, some women’s teams continued playing not following the FA ban. The German Football Association also banned women’s football from 1955 until 1970 and countries like France (1941-1970) and Brazil (1941-1979) followed suit by prohibiting girls from playing football.

THE 21^ST CENTURY

At the beginning of the 21^st century, women’s football started growing and more professional leagues were being formed worldwide, more than one million tickets were sold out for the 1999 Women’s World Cup. Unlike derbies in men’s football, women also have their derbies like the ‘Classique feminin’ when Olympique Lyonnais clash with PSG. Female coaches are under-represented in several European women’s leagues though the popularity in women’s football continues to grow, in 2002 FC Barcelona women’s team recorded the two largest stadium attendance since the 1971 Women’s World Cup. In April 2024 the A-Leauge women’s season set a record for the most attended season of any women’s sport in Australian history. According to FIFA statistics, there are 29 million women and girls playing football worldwide and they target to have 60 million women play football by the year 2026.

INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC TOURNAMENTS

Football being a competitive sport let’s have a look at the tournaments women usually fight for to emerge winners.

• WOMEN’S WORLD CUP
• OLYMPICS
• CONCACAF WOMEN
• UEFA WOMEN’S CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
• UEFA WOMEN’S EURO
• CONMEBOL
• WOMEN’S AFRICA CUP OF NATION
• AFC WOMEN’S ASIAN CUP
• OFC WOMEN’S NATIONS CUP
• WOMEN’S FA CUP

Marta is one of the most successive female players in the women’s player history having won six-time FIFA World Player of the Year, Brazil’s top goal scorer of all time, Golden Ball winner and Golden Boot winner in the Women’s World Cup.

The USA is the top-ranked in women’s football according to FIFA with 2076.9 points followed by England with 2023.42 points and the third spot is held by Spain with 2921.09 as per the last updated data on 16^th August 2024, the next updates for the rankings will be on 20^th December 2024.