Women's association football

Women’s association football—often called women’s football or women’s soccer—is the same team sport as men’s association football, played under the identical Laws of the Game. It is professionally organized in many countries, and roughly 200 national teams compete internationally. The most successful nation in the sport’s history is the United States, which has won four Women’s World Cups and five Olympic gold medals. Germany ranks second, with two World Cup titles and one Olympic gold.

The sport’s first “golden age” came in the United Kingdom during the 1920s, when a single match drew more than 50,000 spectators. But in England, the Football Association banned women’s football from 1921 to 1970, forbidding it on grounds used by its member clubs. Similar bans and hostility from male-dominated organizations arose in many other countries.

International women’s tournaments gained huge popularity in the 1970s, and the oldest surviving continental championship—the AFC Women’s Asian Cup—was founded then. Yet it was not until 1986 that a woman, Ellen Wille, spoke at a FIFA Congress. The first FIFA Women’s World Cup took place in China in 1991, and it has since become a major television event in numerous countries.

**History**

Women may have played football for as long as the game has existed. During the Han dynasty (25–220 CE), women in China played a similar game called cuju (or tsu chu), as shown in frescoes from that period. Annual matches in Midlothian, Scotland, are recorded as early as the 1790s.

In 1863, football’s governing bodies introduced standardized rules to curb violence on the pitch, making the sport seem safe for women. The first match with an international character took place in 1881 at Hibernian Park in Edinburgh, part of a tour by teams from Scotland and England. The Scottish Football Association recorded a women’s match in 1892.

Activist Nettie Honeyball founded the British Ladies’ Football Club in England in 1894. The club played the first officially recorded women’s match in England in March 1895. Honeyball said, “I founded the association late last year [1894], with the fixed resolve of proving to the world that women are not the ‘ornamental and useless’ creatures men have pictured. I must confess, my convictions on all matters where the sexes are so widely divided are all on the side of emancipation, and I look forward to the time when ladies may sit in Parliament and have a voice in the direction of affairs, especially those which concern them most.” Honeyball and others like her paved the way, but British football associations frowned on the women’s game and did not support it—likely because they saw it as a threat to the sport’s “masculinity.”

**The Munitionettes’ Cup**

In August 1917, a tournament launched for female munition workers’ teams in northeast England. Officially called the “Tyne Wear & Tees Alfred Wood Munition Girls Cup,” it was known as “The Munitionettes’ Cup.” Blyth Spartans won the first trophy, beating Bolckow Vaughan 5–0 in a replayed final at Middlesbrough on 18 May 1918 before 22,000 spectators. The tournament ran a second season in 1918–19, with the ladies of Palmer’s shipyard in Jarrow defeating Christopher Brown’s of Hartlepool 1–0 at St James’ Park in Newcastle on 22 March 1919.

During World War I, women’s employment in heavy industry spurred the game’s growth, much as it had for men fifty years earlier. A team from England played a team from Ireland on Boxing Day 1917 in front of 20,000 fans. The Irish side of that match was later dramatized in the 2021 play *Rough Girls*. Dick, Kerr Ladies F.C. of Preston, England, played in one of the first women’s international matches against a French XI team in 1920, and also made up most of the England team that beat a Scottish Ladies XI 22–0 that same year.

**FA Ban (1921–1970)**

Despite being more popular than some men’s football events—one match drew 53,000 spectators—women’s football in England was halted in December 1921. The Football Association banned it from association members’ pitches, stating that “the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.” Players and writers have argued the ban stemmed from envy of the large crowds women’s matches attracted and because the FA had no control over the money raised. Dick, Kerr Ladies player Alice Barlow said, “we could only put it down to jealousy. We were more popular than the men and our bigger gates were for charity.”

Some women’s teams continued playing despite the ban. The Northern Rugby Union did not follow it, so the short-lived English Ladies Football Association (1921–1922) held some matches at rugby grounds. Elsewhere, nationwide bans further weakened women’s football. The German Football Association banned it from 1955 to 1970. France banned it from 1941 to 1970. In Brazil, the Vargas regime and later the military dictatorship legally prohibited women and girls from playing football from 1941 to 1979.

**Tournaments**

**The English Ladies’ Football Association Challenge Cup**

After the FA ban on December 5, 1921, the English Ladies’ Football Association formed with 58 affiliated clubs. Its first president, Len Bridgett, donated a silver cup. In spring 1922, 23 teams entered the first competition.