What if women owned football…

I don’t like to be a cliché as far as my femininity is concerned, but I’m just not much of a football fan. I simply can’t understand the fascination with 22 farts running after a ball. Plus, I’m really tired of having the offside rule explained to me. I don’t think I will ever get it, no need to remind me of my own stupidity whenever a football game is coming up. I don’t like to be stupid, and that’s probably mostly why I don’t like football. So whenever my football-loving friends go out to watch a game, I’m doing my best to avoid their company.

I wouldn’t say disliking football is a general problem, as I’m not the only human, and definitely not the only human trapped in a female body, that feels like this. During the Champions League, for example, I have plenty of fellow-sufferers out there that would rather spend the evening in a cinema watching an intellectually stimulating independent movie than get smashed observing a green field and two white gates in a sports bar. However, with the World Cup currently taking place, this problem of disliking football becomes a whole different ball game, as form some reason, suddenly the whole world turns crazy for football. Going out with friends, unless it’s for watching World Cup games, becomes impossible. People with an aversion to football are put into a socially forced solitary confinement for four long-lasting weeks (due to repeat every four years). And the only way to escape this state of isolation is to somehow develop affection towards the green field, the white goals or the 22 running farts.

In saying that, on closer inspection one day, I found that these 22 running farts turned out to be well-trained, well-toned male beings and suddenly there was a part of football I quite liked. From then on, I focused on games that covered Chile, Sweden, Portugal or Spain, as these teams seem to feature the highest quantity players that suit my taste. It was only for about three games, however, that I managed to trick my mind and escape my social isolation and spend the night watching football with my friends without being bored to death. The fourth game caused that familiar feeling of boredom to creep back in, pretty much as soon as the players’ presentation during the national anthems was over. When I then saw that the second woman in this group of friends was yawning already, too, I decided that there had to be a solution to prevent us females from a month of loneliness in future four-years-intervals.

Now here’s what I thought should change for football to cover the expectations of women: The players’ presentation should be held at the beginning and end of the game. TV cameras should stop focusing on the ball, and instead show close-ups of the best-looking players throughout the whole game, and as a result, cameras only need to cover goals if either the goalkeeper or the scorer belongs to the best-looking players. The part in which the two teams exchange their t-shirts should be repeated during the game every five minutes, at least. Oh, and offside, fouls or delay of the game (they need to take time to change their shirts, right?) should no longer be considered against the rules… Now this might be a lot to change, but not only would these new rules guarantee women will enjoy watching the sport more, but the inexistence of the offside rule would also make heated discussions about incompetent referees redundant…

Now one should still claim that if women owned football, this world wouldn’t be a better world… Cheers to that, girls!

Ela