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Massively divided response to this so just going to do a thread on here to some of the points made instead of replying individually... https://twitter.com/katiewhyatt/status/1330079553423892486
First of all, the idea that women’s teams have to earn investment or opportunity is pretty unfair and doesn’t consider the actual context of women’s football. It was banned for 50 years in the 1920s at the height of its popularity and went underfunded and unsupported for years
and years and years. Yet people ask why the quality isn’t in line with men’s football when it has been subjected to systematic neglect and women haven’t had a hundredth of the opportunities and funding resources. The WSL is not even five years old as a fully-pro league, for eg
So to expect women’s clubs to change that without help and investment, when 100 years earlier the whole sport was sacrificed for men, is deeply unfair. And to say it isn’t making profit is massively hypocritical considering the below. Vast majority of men’s clubs don’t even do it
Women athletes shouldn’t have to prove themselves or ‘earn’ investment or good facilities or a humane - no one is asking for equal! - level of financial recompense, esp when the money needed to compete in the women’s game are figures that top men’s clubs could pretty much write
off as a rounding error (not literally obvs but world record women’s transfer fee is £250k, for context). Takes so little money to compete at top end of women’s game relative to what men’s biggest clubs have to play with. LFC Women won the WSL twice in a row with a squad of
internationals and have now regressed, showing what you can and can’t be in the women’s game. A club of Liverpool’s stature shouldn’t be in the second division and the piece explains the changes the club have made to rectify this (end).
