THE BIG ISSUE
Does the women’s game deserves more coverage
I am a 54-year-old Norwegian male and I have been a subscriber to World Soccer for almost 20 years and enjoyed some good reading. I have especially liked the more “political” views from writers like Glanville and Gardner and the fact that you have focused on the real and important matters in world soccer.
But I want to express my unhappiness at one aspect of the magazine. In your September issue I couldn’t find A SINGLE WORD mentioning the women’s World Cup! My country just played Canada in front of a crowd of more than 40,000 people, more than many Premier League clubs can boast.
If you go to fifa.com you will be met by a very wide and serious coverage of the finals in China, with reports for every match. Norway’s matches go live on the big TV channel in my country and even some of the other matches. The sports papers are also full of coverage.
What’s wrong with the UK? Don’t you respect women’s soccer? England is at this moment in the quarter-final playing the USA! The other big soccer nations like Brazil, Ghana, Sweden, Argentina and Germany are there. Please, wake up!
Can you imagine an international athletics magazine not covering women because the fastest women in the world run a little slower than most of the men? Your only excuse would be if you had a special women’s soccer mag, but I have never heard of it.
Tore Westberg, Norway
Editor Gavin Hamilton replies: Tore, I understand your frustration. We review the women’s World Cup in this issue, but we did not preview the tournament because we took a decision earlier this year only to preview the Copa America. The men’s Under-17 World Cup, Under-20 World Cup and Asian Cup were not previewed either; instead, we reviewed them because we are a “journal of record”.
There may be lots of coverage on the FIFA website, but it is a FIFA tournament and FIFA needs to promote its sponsors. The interest in the UK is very low, I have to admit, and yours is the first letter we have received complaining about our lack of a preview.
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