Author: SHANNON NAJMABADI
Women’s football; record crowds and soaring popularity – here’s how to keep it this way
On Boxing Day 1920, a sell-out crowd of 53,000 watched a women’s football match at Liverpool’s Goodison Park, with others waiting outside. With more than 900,000 women working in munitions factories during the first world war, many factories set up women’s football teams to keep the new female workers healthy and safely occupied. At the time, women seemed to be breaking […]
How the sports world is still stacked against top women
The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) recently awarded full-time professional contracts to 12 women players. However, the value of the contracts has not been revealed and the 12 contracts are not enough to make up a full rugby union team, let alone a squad. These contracts are still unusual and top sportswomen continue to face more funding issues […]
Sports expert Q&A on what Djokovic row means for unvaccinated elite athletes
Tennis star Novak Djokovic is out of the Australian Open after the country’s immigration minister, Alex Hawke, cancelled his visa “on the basis that it was in the public interest to do so”. This follows an earlier quashing of the original decision by Border Force officials to cancel the Serbian player’s visa when he arrived in Australia […]
Women’s sport is on the way up – but more needs to be done to secure its future
The delayed 2020/21 Women’s FA Cup final is finally taking place. Two London rivals, Arsenal and Chelsea, and some of the best players in the world make this a sporting event worthy of a grand stage such as Wembley Stadium. The timing of the final, December 5, is significant and ironic, as on December 5 1921 the […]
‘Harder than I’d expected’ top players on why joining Premier League from abroad is so tough
The new football season has seen the return of fans, and the return of big money transfers. Ahead of the transfer window closing at the end of August, big names joining the English Premier League from overseas include Raphael Varane (to Manchester United from Real Madrid for £42 million) and Romelu Lukaku (to Chelsea from Inter Milan for £97.5 […]