A Beautiful Game: International Perspectives on Women's Football

by Jean M. Williams

FIFA, the world governing body of association football, declared 'The Future is Feminine' in a 1995 press release. Since then, football has been claimed as the fastest growing participation sport for women globally. An estimated twenty million women play the game around the world, and that figure is on the rise. However, the history of women's participation goes back to at least 1895 and in our enthusiasm for the present, the memory of that longer history can be overlooked or forgotten.A Beautiful Game examines contemporary women's football internationally, with case studies from England, the United States, China and Australia. In each case study, Jean Williams considers the evolution of the women's game against a backdrop of issues, such as media representation, access to facilities, lack of resources, coaching, sponsorship, talent identification, training and professionalisation. The author examines contentious questions, such as why women are absent from the highest levels of professional football, combining source material from archives, oral history and artefacts.A Beautiful Game analyses the status and image of the women's game from the late nineteenth century to the shifting social values of the present.

Genres: Sports

224 pages, Paperback

First published February 5, 2007

About the author

Dr. Williams is professor emeritus of University of Arizona, Department of Exercise and Sport Science, and the Department of Psychology.

Reviews

[Ilias]

I picked up this book for a pre-world-cup read, + just finished it today, so... it took me a While. In large part that was because it's a very academic text, in a field I'm entirely unfamiliar with. It's a very dense read.

That said, I enjoyed it! It obviously covers only a very small and specific portion of soccer history, but I learned a lot and definitely feel like I have a basis on which to build knowledge of the subject. Do I want to? I'm not sure!!

It was published in the late 2000's, which isn't super long ago, but I spent a lot of time wondering how the author would write about the current situation. The existence of the nwsl and the current popularity of the matildas are the biggest ones for me. But time passes, + you can't hold that against a book.

Yeah, I dunno. I had a nice time + enjoyed this book for what it was; I wouldn't recommend it if you're not interested in the topic, though.

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jean Williams has been setting the standard for serious historical analysis of women's football in recent years. Her first book (A Game for Rough Girls) is a ground-breaking exploration of the history and development of women's football in the UK. In this she revisits and critiques many of her own arguments, based on further analysis, and explores similar questions in North America, contintental Europe, China and Australia. Those who have not read A Game for Rough Girls might find that the first chapter (where she revisits the earlier analysis) difficult, but once she gets into the new material, knowledge of the previous analysis is unnecessary: once again, she has given us a sacrificial text.